The global financial crisis has reduced the differences between nations and created the opportunity to form a new world order, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Wednesday.

Speaking after a meeting with Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev in the Kazakh capital Astana, Lula called on the global community to seize on the crisis to create a fairer world for developing nations.

“I want to say that before the crisis, there were many countries which had greater significance than others, and some countries which had no significance at all,” he said through a translator.

“After the crisis, everyone has become similar. We have the possibility to create a new world order and together we should improve our relations.”

Lula arrived in Kazakhstan Wednesday following the first-ever summit between fellow developing economic powerhouses Russia, India and China — together with Brazil dubbed the BRIC nations — in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.

Nazarbayev, head of Central Asia’s largest economy, is keen to secure a larger role for his government in world affairs.

Following up on Lula’s call, the pair said in a statement following their meeting that the United Nations should open up the UN Security Council to developing nations in an effort to bolster global security.

They said that opening the organisation, which only has five permanent members, to wider membership was the only way to make the often-criticised body “more legitimate and effective.”