Poverty has become a crucial fact throughout the world and has a great influence on economic development. Foreign aid from rich regions has been devoted to poverty reduction. Before delving further into the debate, it is necessary to clarify the terms “Western countries” and “global poverty”. Western countries refer to the most developed countries that share a high standard of living for most of their residents, such as the United States, most European countries, and Australia. In this essay, global poverty can be defined as no or very limited access to fresh water, medical facilities and education (Sumner, 2011, Internet). This essay will demonstrate that Western countries have not worked hard to help poor nations develop comprehensively. First, much of the food and resources of developed countries are wasted, while others do not receive enough food to meet their energy needs. We see that Western countries do not even distribute food. In addition, the lack of aid for education creates a significant gap between these less developed countries and Western countries. A high illiteracy rate also leads to serious long-term global poverty problems. Finally, economic aid is insufficiently provided to poor countries. At the same time, trade liberalization, which is accelerating at a spectacular pace, is also leading to ecosystem degradation and thus global poverty. Regarding poverty, firstly, food poverty faces most poor countries and it can be defined as the inability to obtain healthy and affordable food. . Unfortunately, Western countries do not provide effective assistance to combat this problem. An example can be seen in Ethiopia, according to the United Nations report, in 2008, almost half of the Ethiopian population...... middle of article......lobalissues.org/article/35 /foreign-aid-development- assistance (accessed April 4, 2011)Stiglitz, J. (2002) Globalization and its discontents WWNorton and Company: United StatesSumner, A. (2011) “The new poorest billion: what if most of the world's poor lived in middle income Countries? 'http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1424922 (accessed March 30, 2011) United Nations Statistics Organization (2007) Report of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs for the United Nations Millennium Development : United StatesUniversal United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (2005) “The State of the World's Children” http://www.unicef.org/sowc05/english/sowc05.pdf (accessed April 5, 2011 ) World Bank Group (2010) “Poverty: Social Fund for Development” in J. Healey (ed.) Foreign Aid and World Debt. Social Issues Vol.134 The Spinney Press: Sydney