However you look at it, the world is getting richer. According to the World Bank, annual global gross domestic product - the total wealth produced by the world in a year - hit $40.9 trillion dollars in 2004, almost 30 percent up from just four years before.

But if you live in Niger, this might mean very little.

The huge, arid central Africa state, where life expectancy is 46 and the average yearly income just $230, is officially ranked by the United Nations as the least developed nation in the world.

The UN Development Program compiles what it calls a "human development index," factoring health, longevity, education and income data to come up with a league table of deprivation.

At the other opposite of the scale is Norway, where babies will live on average until almost 80 and average incomes are around 225 times higher than those in Niger.

It is what the UN terms "the inequality predicament" that lies at the heart of efforts to boost economic development the world over.

In recent years, despite healthy overall economic growth, inequality has increased, a factor experts put down to the way some countries have done far better out of trade liberalization than others, as well as the devastating effect of HIV/AIDS in Africa.

It is not just a humanitarian problem. The World Bank notes: "With imperfect markets, inequalities in power and wealth translate into unequal opportunities, leading to wasted productive potential and to an inefficient allocation of resources."

Ways to tackle this divide are an increasingly important priority for many world leaders.

In 2005, the G8 summit of rich nations in Scotland in July pledged $50 million dollars extra a year in aid for developing nations, as well as some debt relief.

At the same time, the Live8 rock concert beamed the issues of aid, trade and development into homes worldwide.

It came five years after the UN launched its Millennium Development Goals, eight ambitions relating to poverty, health, education and the like, with a target date of 2015.

Much remains to be done: last year the UN found that some parts of the developing world are doing immeasurably better than others.

For example, while the proportion of people in East Asia living on less than a dollar a day - the standard shorthand for extreme poverty - fell from 33% in 1990 to 16.6% in 2001, in sub-Saharan Africa the equivalent rose from 44.6% to 46.4%.

International aid agencies have long called for more aid and debt relief as well as reforms to international trade and agriculture.

The World Trade Organization is especially sometimes criticized as a forum for richer nations to protect their own interests and markets, preventing the developing world from fully enjoying the much-touted fruits of globalization.

But developing countries must also put their houses in order, says Duncan Green, head of research at aid charity Oxfam.

"You've got governments which are not planning properly, they may also be doing deals which mean they are personally getting rich without the country developing as a whole.

"But the external question is that in some cases the rich countries are quite intent on keeping the poor countries in their place, where they get the best of the international trading system, for example.

"And then when poor countries start to do better the rich countries get quite worried, like with China at the moment."

What do you think?

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Only multi-national corporations seem to benefit as a result of their expanded markets. Developing countries are simply not equipped to survive much more thrive in globalized environment. Debt relief is a good take off point. In my country alone roughly around 60 percent of the national budget is appropriated for servicing the debt.

Unless developing countries could turn the world upside down and reinvent the business model, we will greatly appreciate the guidance, training, support, and technology from the principal proponents of globalization.

Cutting down trees to help agriculture only works temporarily -- development must be sustainable and it must benefit all. Nature should be kept intact because this attracts tourists, as well as keeping the country attractive.

Come on. It's a well known fact - people are selfish. The richer you get, the more selfish you are.

It seems so easy to propose funding to developing countries, or helping them with their debts. There is A LOT we can do. I bet everyone knows that. The point is - who will take the first step?

Yes, China is taking a great step forward in development but America is still the world's number one country. Yet it's like they're not taking action to help with the situation - they're actually worsening it.

All this debate is debris if everyone just faces the computer and throws in their ideas but NO ONE MOVES.

What the debates about global inequality are sadly missing is a sense of history. Why is the living standard in some countries 200 times higher than in others? Hundreds of years of ruthless exploitation of the global south by the global north.

The developed world maintains its stranglehold over the developing nations of the world via years of accumulated debt, debt that developing countries have no hope of paying down because of annual interest applied by lending nations.

In response to this debt, developing nations must look to other lending nations and banks to gain loans to pay down the accumulating interest, leaving the central issue still unresolved, that of the original debt.

Developed countries have no motive to see these debts dropped or the establishment of more worldwide equality, instead it depends on the pointless efforts of rock stars to try and amass any support for solutions. Such solutions include forgiving all or part of accumulated debts, however government response to this topic is hesitant at best and nonexistent at worst.

I think that the rich countries get worried because they really don't want the poorer nations to build up their economies.

Maybe they do just to a certain extent -- if they feel you may be a threat they will come in and just try to take over. If they really wanted these nations to do well, all the richest nations would put at least 2% to 3% of their yearly incomes and bring world hunger to an end or at least give them a really good start.

The civilized, or First World countries, as they call themselves, do not want the poor countries to be any richer than they are right now. The developed countries take joy in the poverty of the poor nations.

Do we think that the big corporations do not know what to do when it comes to reinvesting in the very economy from which they derive majority of their raw materials? Take the case of the Niger Delta of Nigeria. When I visited Nigeria in 2004, I was in Ogini Pumping Station which is just 10 miles from my birth place in Aradhe, in Isoko, Delta State of Nigeria.

This Flow Station pumps 34,000 barrels of crude oil daily into the economy any yet, there is no road, no light and no water. Those that manage these oil industries are all from developed nations. The developed nations also are aware of how one group is armed against the other group, in an effort to disable them from protecting the very resources that is in their own land.

In all the cases the rich countries are quite intent on keeping the poor countries in their place, where they get the best of the international trading system. The rich countries can not say that they are not aware of the huge amount the leaders in Nigeria stack in foreign banks.

Monies that should have been used to develop their own countries, thereby eradicate poverty and diseases and better the lives of the growing population. The rich nations, are very deliberate in their intentions to keep the poor nations poorer.

Let's face it, too many good people will not get a fair crack at the explosion taking place on the world economic stage. Most who do are not your garden variety human being.

In addition to that, wars are going to continue, so will disease and poverty. The uneducated will become even less educated, and those who starve will increase.

Why? Because there are limits to everything except for hate, intolerance and greed. You see, there are a lot fewer people who love more then those who want more. The needs of the many out weigh the needs of few, at least in a world where the powerful actually cared about some one other than those who make them richer and powerful.

That would be just grand, don't you think? Sure, there are some who do a lot of good for a lot of people, but, their efforts will prove futile in the end because the super powerful will find a way to destroy hope, peace and joy in a world where there is already far too little of those things now.

Principal Voices is a wonderful program which brings together several highly inspirational people of our time to share their views.

Please be careful not to belittle the complexities of the issues being discussed, however, by posing questions in overly simplistic terms. Rather than posing a question: "Who is to blame for the world's inequality?" please focus on what can be done to address the inequality and the many problems that arise from the extent of inequality. Please move away from "blame" - the challenges are too important to get bogged down in such thinking.

Richer nations are obligated to help poorer nations. It disgusts me that we (in America) are obese and eat too much when people in other countries are dying because they don't have enough.

Globalization is a means for the richest to get richer at the expense of everyone else. In the West we see our jobs outsourced to the cheapest places, this way the people everywhere lose and the richest get richer.

Large global companies are hard to manage for all countries and local laws have to be discounted in order to keep or acquire jobs from these global companies.

While it is perceived as true reality, the World Trade Organization continues to serve as a forum for richer nations to protect their own interests, while the developing nations are calling for trade liberalization.

Not until we focus on the liberalization of global trade policy by allowing poor countries to trade freely, the world will continue to widen the gap between rich and poor nations.

Developed countries like the U.S. and U.K. are claiming to be helping Africa but it's a shame that they are not doing that actually. I sometimes look at them as exploiters, because for years all we have been asking for is free trade, not them taking raw materials which we buy back refined.

There should be sharing of technology in order to achieve development, that is to say more advanced countries should go to all these countries and establish some of the companies that will help them produce some of these products that they need; and not selling it to them.

Wealthy nation such as the United States have allowed large businesses to become globally involved, which seriously hurts the economies of impoverished nations.

Corporations go into nations like Iraq for profit. They may provide jobs for the poor, but they don't pay them nearly enough, just like the Mexican illegals that are running the U.S. agricultural system.

All of the large wealth created by these businesses is simply sent back to the U.S. to make the millionaires a little richer.

I have always thought that a global distribution of wealth, including health care, is important and needed. We just have to focus our interests into helping the poor rather than profiting from them.

Civilization does not happen overnight and so before America got to where it is today it took time and hard work, and determined efforts, too -- especially with the help of black men and women who were inhumanly from taken from Africa.

Africa is not saying the developed nations should release all their resources and cash to them because, of course, money you give somebody who does not work for it is a waste and will not be properly managed.

All Africa is saying is: create an enabling environment for them to have access to your technology, tools for development and also to empower them to be on top, too.

The increasing levels of world inequality will continue as long as there is no effort to break from the past.

For instance, commitments to this or that continue to be made, but at the same time no serious effort of taking stock of the accomplishment of those commitments is made. Fresh pledges are made without fulfilling old ones!

If the world wants to see Africa grow out of poverty, it is not sufficient to just provide aid, the world must also ensure that Africa is given some level of power in world politics.

For instance, what voice does Africa have at the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, WTO -- all these places where far-reaching decisions are made? Africa, on its part, should love its continent and its peoples, without which leaders will continue to be self serving.

The best way to end the global disparity of wealth is to unify all nations into a world government based on democracy, which would collect taxes and use those taxes where they are most needed.

The current system relies on charity, but the world government system would rely on taxes. The world government would not be extremely intrusive on current nation-states, but would merely collect taxes in order to ensure that social needs are met, the environment is sufficiently protected, and that human rights are ensured to all mankind.

I read Time Magazine which featured Bono and Jeffrey Sachs when they declared that poverty should be made history. The cover featured a young woman with three children who were all of pre-school age. Where was the father? Were these 3 children the result of immaculate conception? Or, the real reason, the picture would not evoke the same sympathy if the father was featured as well?

I so dislike propaganda. The responsibility for these children rests with, primarily, the father and, in addition, with the mother. One cannot produce children and then look to others to support them.

I may be old-fashioned but I grew up taking responsibility for my actions. If Bono wants to save the world then he should give his fortune to the poverty-stricken people.

He cannot expect Europe to do this. They have problems of their own, with an aging population which will need medical care. As there are fewer children the burden will fall on the next generation.

The present generation was able to rebuild Europe after two devastating world wars and they should be taken care of ahead of a continent which has never displayed any control. In South Africa, single mothers are given child-support of $30 per month. They are busy producing a child every year. Are you saying that I should support these girls?

From all I see and hear, very few that speak out on these bulletin boards have much in the way of common sense, or how everything and everyone depends on everything and everyone else.

There seems to be an almost complete disconnect for most people. It seems many can make accusations, but it seems they can't get past that.

On this board it seems quite a few are an echo chamber, as Kurt suggests. If you want serious reflection and intelligence, one must have lived many of the insults of power, to be able to speak to at least part of the subject.

You must also be able to admit when you are wrong or at least back away without childish name calling and attacks.

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When I first came to this board I just scanned a few posts instead of reading them carefully. I may have been looking for the worst and I apologize. I was wrong. There seems to be a lot of good thinking here.

It would seem that people can only understand what they have lived, even when there are some that say they understand. They absolutely cannot, no matter how hard they may try and they cannot defend what they do not understand.

Is this supposed to be a global debate board? I see very little in the way of debate.

This is more of an international echo chamber touting thievery. As the continent of Africa has shown us, you cannot be rescued from your own corruption. We cannot spend you into economic prosperity.

We spend more than we ever have before on ensuring more 'equitable distribution' of wealth in the world. You people are telling us the gap is worse than ever, which shows that your ideas don't work.

The problem with your thinking is that distributed wealth is unearned wealth and will always be wasted by despots, and will simply be gobbled up because it encourages irresponsible behavior.

The answer is that you need to clean your own house. It takes time, so you can't expect immediate returns.

Free countries rarely remain poor countries. One of the most basic freedoms is the freedom to own property. That is what spurs a people to succeed -- enlightened self-interest.

History shows that people are not generally motivated to succeed because of some silly and lofty notion of economic equality for all people. It will always be against human nature and so it will always fail.

One last point: corruption and oppression will probably always be part of the human condition and therefore, so will poverty.

It is an unrealistic goal to eradicate world poverty. Working to change your own little corner of the world will bear more fruit than trying to change the whole world by separating the industrialized nations from their wealth.

Your essay speaks of country on country, but be assured, while your suggestion that richer nations keep the poor nations down is true, within these rich nations they do the same to the poor -- or should I say the hardest working. It's far from being just nation on nation.

It is in the way people are taught that really scares the governments of the world, because if the best teaching was in place, even in the poorest nations, and used extensively, those nations would surpass the rich nations in relatively short order -- IF you have the right teachers.

Equality and fair distribution and transparency in each individual country is the most important things to do before any third parties can help.

Free Trade means no trade tariffs on imports or exports. This means trade is based on survival of the fittest. The developed countries, WTO, and IMF demand free trade rules.

In developing countries, imports are always of greater value than exports because imports are usually high-tech and exports are usually low-tech (mostly agriculture).

The wealth of developing countries is being drained. Under free trade rules the wealth of the developing countries must be shifted to enrich the developed countries.

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