WASHINGTON, April 23, 2009 (AFP) - French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde signed Thursday an accord to provide the International Monetary Fund with an additional US$16 billion ($24.13b) to help it fight the global financial crisis.

"I have signed the letter committing France to pay the IMF this contribution to increase the funds available to the IMF to fight the crisis," Lagarde said after meeting IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

The Group of 20 developed and developed countries agreed earlier this month to boost the IMF's coffers by 500 billion dollars in face of the worst global slump since the 1930s Great Depression.

Lagarde said France was making a contribution of 15 billion dollars as part of this additional funding for the IMF, with another billion dollars going to help fund its poverty reduction programs.

The announcement comes ahead of the annual spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington this weekend, with gatherings of Group of Seven and Group of 20 finance officials being held Friday.

The meetings are expected to be dominated by discussions of the crisis after the IMF earlier this week slashed its economic forecasts, saying the world is headed for an unprecedented slowdown before any recovery sets in.