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With the former communist nations of Eastern and Central Europe  reeling from the global economic crisis, three major lenders said on Friday that they would inject some 24.5 billion euros, or $31 billion, over two years into the region’s banks to try to rescue its businesses.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the economies of Eastern and Central Europe have largely boomed, propelled by borrowing from those same Western banks, which are now wrestling with toxic debt and a tight credit market.

The heads of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank and the World Bank said in a statement that the plan to “deploy rapid, large-scale and coordinated financial assistance” was intended to support lending “in particular to small and medium-sized enterprises.”

Thomas Mirow, the head of the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, said: “For many years the growing integration of Europe  has been a source of prosperity and mutual benefit and we must not allow this process to be reversed.”

The plan was announced as the European Union prepared for an emergency meeting on Sunday to debate how banks could be helped out of the crisis.

The three global development banks said on Friday that their financing for Eastern and Central Europe would be in the form of equity and debt finance, credit lines and political risk insurance.

“This is a time for Europe to come together to ensure that the achievements of the last 20 years are not lost because of an economic crisis that is rapidly turning into a human crisis,” Robert B. Zoellick, the head of the World Bank, said in a statement.

The plan commits the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to provide 6 billion euros to financial institutions and in trade finance. The European Investment Bank pledged 11 billion euros in loans to small and medium-size enterprises, while the World Bank promised support of 7.5 billion euros.

For Central and Eastern Europe, the credit squeeze in the West compounded other economic woes. Average growth in the region fell to 3.2 percent last year, from 5.4 percent in 2007. The forecast for this year is for a contraction of at least 0.4 percent.

In turn, the currencies of several countries in the region have slipped against the euro, forcing up the local cost of repaying debt. In Poland, for instance, the zloty has fallen 48 percent against the euro from a high last summer. That has left the region’s consumers with less cash to purchase products from Western companies, but there has also been a growing social cost threatening the stability of some governments.

As the squeeze forced governments to cut back on public services, so too has public discontent with politicians risen. In recent months, the International Monetary Fund has approved emergency packages totaling $50 billion for countries including Iceland, Hungary, Latvia, Ukraine, Serbia and Belarus. But that did not prevent the collapse of governments in Iceland and Latvia.---nytimes.com