The world needs to prepare for the next economic crisis, even as it begins to recover from the worst recession since the Great Depression, the head of the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday.

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, speaking to business students at a Johannesburg university, expressed concern that recovery could mean leaders will feel less pressure to work together and pursue such reforms as tightening regulation and supervision of financial markets.

“The consensus is stronger when you’re afraid,” he said.

“Certainly this consensus is not as strong as it was six months ago,” Strauss-Kahn said.

The former French finance minister said he could not predict the timing or the nature, but “don’t fool ourselves, there will be future crises.”

In its most recent World Economic Outlook, the IMF predicted output would grow by 3.1 percent in 2010. But it also cautioned that unemployment would continue to grow.

“I won’t say that the crisis is over. I would say we are probably in the second part of the crisis,” he said.

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