Well the womens' literacy rate in Bangladesh improved because of the 'send your girl to school' program, started by Khaleda Zia in the 90's. At the end of the month households got a sack of rice as a reward. These measures resulted in not only highest rate of female labor participation in South Asia (higher than the US as a matter of fact), it also resulted in higher female secondary education, lowering of birthrate and fertility (lowest in South Asia and below that of India, Sanghis take note) and many other female emancipation parameters and UN SDG goals.
Above all, two of the largest Bangladeshi NGO's (also largest globally, BRAC and Grameen, latter founded by Dr. Muhammad Yunus) played a huge part in Bangladesh doing well in 14 different UN designated World Development Indicators (WDIs) - which portrays a picture of the living standards of people in our three South Asian countries. Let's take a look.
GDP per capita, below is not correct, Bangladesh exceeded India's figure in mid 2020.
Some other indicators...