Brazil's Finance Minister Guido Mantega answers questions during a news conference in Sao Paulo. Mantega spoke Friday ahead of a meeting this weekend of G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors.

Sao Paulo, Brazil ? Brazil, Russia, India and China are unifying to demand a big role in negotiations aimed at creating a new global financial order and preventing another economic meltdown, Brazil’s finance minister said Friday.

After meeting with top economic officials from the four nations plus Mexico and South Africa, Guido Mantega said they will insist that developing nations have a big say in deciding how to fix the problems that caused an economic crisis that has hit them hard.

“We are still directed and controlled by institutions that reflect the economic situation of the 1940s and 1950s,” Mantega said.

Speaking ahead of a weekend meeting of finance ministers and central bank presidents from the Group of Twenty industrialized and developing economies, or G-20, Mantega said the world financial structure created by rich nations can’t be fixed without a strong say from the so-called BRIC nations.

“We consider that the present institutions failed,” Mantega told reporters. “They did not know how to avoid this financial problem. They did not detect it in time and failed to prevent it from happening.”

France is suggesting bringing emerging economies on board as members of the exclusive world club of G-8 industrialized nations, but Mantega didn’t specify which emerging-market nations besides Brazil, Russia, India and China should be allowed to join.

European presidents on Friday suggested making the International Monetary Fund the world’s financial watchdog, giving it more power to curb financial crises, with more money to aid countries in trouble.

But Mantega said Brazil believes that role should go to an expanded version of the G8, turning it into a group of nations numbering as many as 15. While leaders of the G-20 nations will meet in Washington on Nov. 15 for a financial crisis summit, the group typically has not been a power broker in determining important world financial decisions because it is led by finance ministers and central bank presidents.

“We could strengthen the G20, or the G7 could be expanded and house the main emerging-market countries,” Mantega said.

Whatever group ends up being in charge, Mantega said nations like Brazil will no longer sit idly “as mere coffee drinkers” at summits while rich nations make important financial decisions.

Mantega said he agreed with a decision by European leaders at their summit on Friday to establish a 100-day time frame to forge urgent global finance reforms.

“I think it’s a reasonable period to form the proposals and put them in place,” he said. “It doesn’t mean we’re going to reorganize the financial system in 100 days.”