UNITED NATIONS, Oct 26: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged the world's large economies to heed the voices of global public protest at their G-20 summit next week and to take “bold” decisions to resolve the global economic crisis, because “everywhere, people are losing faith in governments and public institutions”.

“The G-20 has a historic opportunity, and a historic responsibility, to deliver bold solutions and lead the way. Above all else, we need to be united,” he told the leaders of the G-20 group of major industrialised and developing economies in a letter released on Wednesday ahead of the Nov 3-4 summit in Cannes, France.

The gathering force of public protest is the popular expression of an obvious fact: that growing economic uncertainty, market volatility and mounting inequality have reached a point of crisis.

The time for haggling over incremental steps was over, he said and called for the same ambitious leadership shown at the 2009 summit in London in the midst of the global financial meltdown.

In the letter sent to leaders before the summit, Mr Ban stressed that even though budgets were stretched thin, the world could not afford to lose sight of those who were hardest hit: the poor, the planet, youth and women.