World leaders wrapped up the G8 summit in L’Aquila last night, saying that it could be the last meeting of its kind.

President Obama joined Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister who hosted the meeting, in suggesting that the G8 was too small to cope with the problems facing the world and that other emerging countries needed to be included.

“To think we can somehow deal with some of these global challenges in the absence of major powers like China, India and Brazil seems to be wrong-headed,” Mr Obama told reporters shortly before leaving for Ghana on his first trip to sub-Saharan Africa as US President.

The demise of the G8 — made up of rich northern hemisphere countries — illustrates its limitations in dealing with global issues such as climate change and the economic crisis. In any case the G8 countries were joined by the leaders of China, India, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and Egypt, spontaneously forming the G14.

It was this group, Mr Berlusconi said, that would become the dominant international talking shop. “As far as I am concerned the G14 is the format that in the future will have the best possibility to take the most important decisions on the world economy — and not just that,” he said.

President Zuma of South Africa welcomed a bigger forum. “It is a recognition that you couldn’t just continue with the G8 when the global matters that are being discussed affect many countries,” he said. Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, said that the G8 was an important forum but a more representative body was needed. “At one point we had a G8, a G9, a G14 or 15, a G18, a G19, a G25, and we finally ended with a G28. And, we have the G20 process going on around the world, which is up to G24 last time I counted. I think our challenge for the year ahead will be to bring some coherence to this.” Canada takes over the G8 presidency next year.

The G8 did manage to take one key decision yesterday as it announced a $20 billion (£12.3 billion) programme to help poor nations feed themselves.

The fund — more than expected, and to include $1.8 billion (£1.1 billion) from Britain’s development budget — will be spent on agricultural development in Africa and other parts of the world, a switch of priorities from the traditional practice of direct food aid.

Leaders had been expected to agree a $15 billion (£9.2 billion) fund but more pledges came during the final session from other nations.

It was not clear what part of the programme was new aid money and how much had been taken from other parts of aid budgets. The leaders said that the farm aid would increase agricultural productivity, offer training, preserve natural resources and help technology, private sector growth, women and smallholders.

Gordon Brown said: “It is unacceptable that people are hungry in a world as fertile as ours. Not only does Africa have the ability to feed itself if things are done right, eventually it could play an extra part in feeding the world.”

The United States used the meeting of world leaders to push for a shift towards farm aid from food aid and will make $3.5 billion (£2.1 billion) available to the three-year programme. Japan and the European Union are expected to step in with about $3 billion (£1.8 billion) each.

The UN says the number of malnourished people has risen in the past two years and is expected to reach 1.02 billion this year, reversing a four-decade trend of declines. The plan was welcomed by aid organisations at the summit. “Food aid is necessary because we have people suffering from drought, from flood, from conflicts, and what they want is immediate food to eat,” Jacques Diouf, the head of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, said.

“But if we have to feed one billion hungry people, we have to help them produce their own food.” He called the new initiative “the biggest shift in strategy over the past two decades”.

G8 leaders promised in Gleneagles in 2005 to increase annual aid by $50 billion (£30.8 billion) by 2010, half of which was meant for African countries.

Aid groups said that some G8 countries have gone back on their word, especially Italy. African leaders said that they would voice their concerns, with Ethiopian premier Meles Zenawi saying: “The key message is to ask the G8 to live up to their commitments.”

Mr Obama said that rising food prices meant that millions more people were falling into desperate poverty. “We face a choice,” he said. “We can either shape our future or let events shape it for us.

“While our markets are improving and we appear to have averted global collapse, we know that too many people are still struggling. So we agree that full recovery is still a way off.”

Mr Obama also warned Iran that the world would not wait indefinitely for it to co-operate on its nuclear ambitions, saying Tehran had until September to comply or else face the consequences. He said: “We’re not going to just wait indefinitely and wake up one day and find ourselves in a much worse situation and unable to act.”

Meanwhile Mr Berlusconi, who has been engulfed in scandals since his wife Veronica Lario demanded a divorce in May, declared the summit a success and added that a press campaign to unseat him over his relationships with showgirls had failed.

He said that he had established a “cordial relationship” with Mr Obama, adding that at dinner “he told me about his private life and I told him about mine”.

Carla Bruni, who missed the first two days of the summit, toured the ruins of L’Aquila and pledged that France would pay half of the approximately €9 million to restore the 17th-century church of Santa Maria del Suffragio. “It’s terrible,” she said. “I am Italian and I want to help.”

Ms Bruni’s sudden reattachment to Italy will not mollify the Berlusconi media — especially after saying last year that she was glad to be French when the Italian Prime Minister described President Obama as “tanned”. Il Giornale, Silvio Berlusconi’s newspaper, attacked her for her “snobbery”

Mr Brown asked Muammar Gaddafi to intervene in the case of a British child abducted by her Libyan father and taken to his country. Britain is seeking the repatriation of Nadia Fawzi, 6, who was taken from her mother Sarah Taylor, of Wigan, in 2007. Mr Gaddafi — who as usual brought a Bedouin-style tent and a contingent of female bodyguards — undertook to look into the case.

Nine governments have adopted monuments devastated by the Abruzzo earthquake. Spain agreed to donate ¤50 million to restore the Spanish Fortress in L’Aquila.

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