When Bangladesh was included in the Least Developed Country (LDC) group in 1975—at a time when the country and its economy was still recovering from the devastating Liberation War and the genocide that was committed against its people, and was about to fall into the clasps of one military dictatorship after the other—

83 percent of the population was living in poverty. By 1982, this figure still stood at a formidable 74 percent. However, by 2019, the poverty rate in Bangladesh had fallen to 20.5 percent.