A week ahead of the Sept 24-25 summit of the leaders of Group of 20 nations to be held in the once-thriving US steel town of Pittsburgh, leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel were pressing for concrete results.
"Leaders will agree to coordinate on any talk of exit strategies going forward," one source said.
"They will agree to use the words 'exit strategy' more and more."
Hundreds of billions of dollars have been pumped into the global economy in the past year and G20 leaders are anxious to show they have a plan for withdrawing this stimulus only once a recovery is fully under way and before inflation is unleashed.
Germany's Ms Merkel said that, amid tentative signs of global recovery, G20 leaders must step up more than they did when they met in April in London to show that they have the will to pursue meaningful financial market reform that will bring more stability.
"It is very important that we get concrete results that go well beyond what was agreed in London," Ms Merkel said.
Reports continued to circulate in G20 capitals that some bid might be made to come up with a proposals for a framework, or set of principles, that all could agree to as a road map for reducing global imbalances that have some countries racking up huge trade surpluses while others consumer their way into deficits.
Brazil's central bank chief, Henrique Meirelles, suggested that much of the answer lay with the two countries on opposite sides of the current account imbalances - China and the United States - but it also required shifts in the balance of decision-making powers.
"Certainly only moves by the two sides can achieve rebalancing, that is by increasing US savings and increasing Chinese consumption," Mr Meirelles said.
Another element must be agreement for emerging-market countries, like Brazil and China, to gain a bigger say in global institutions like the International Monetary Fund.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in a letter to European Union leaders, said the IMF could be an important tool in stabilising the world economy.
"The IMF and the World Bank must have the tools they need to help countries manage and insure themselves against the risk of future crises," Mr Brown said.
"This could involve improvements to IMF facilities to make them attractive to a wider range of countries, the development and integration of regional reserve pooling arrangements, and the use by the multilateral development banks of innovative new facilities, to provide protection against sudden stops in global capital flows."
GDP to show ‘rocky road ahead’Nations’ trade restrictions show they’re not walking the walk on free trade
