The Physical Setting and Economy of Bangladesh and Singapore Among our centuries most urgent problems is the wholly unacceptable poverty that blights the lives of some 2,000 million people in more than 100 countries of the developing world. Of these 2,000 million, nearly 800 million are caught up in what can only be termed absolute poverty- a condition of life so limited as to prevent realization of the potential of the genes with which they were born; a condition of life so degrading as to be an insult to human dignity . (Hossain,1987,p.1) From one mill