Promoting Public Private Partnership for Development of Tourism Sector of Bangladesh: An Exploratory Study

Tourism has become a very important and dynamic sector both in the world economy and particular in the developing country like Bangladesh. Its growth affects not only the activities directly linked to tourism but also other sectors. This article is devised to find out the prospects of tourism with the help of public private partnership (PPP) projects in Bangladesh.The key findings of the study is that proper implementation of public private partnership in tourism can enhance economic growth of Bangladesh through developing tourism sector. Key Words: Tourism, public private partnership, tourism development, GD

Investment Performance of Islamic Bank: An Empirical Study

The article undertakes an empirical study on investment of Islamic Bank. The aim of the study is to examine and evaluate the performance of investment of Islamic Bank for the time period 2005-2009 in comparison with a conventional Bank. Several financial ratios are applied for this purpose. For the empirical investigation data has been collected from Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited and Mutual Trust Bank Limited. The study found that Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited (IBBL) is relatively less profitable and less risky (more solvent) during 2005-2009 compared to a conventional bank (Mutual Trust Bank Limited), however, it is improving considerably over time indicating convergence with the performance of the conventional banks

Estimation of the Optimal Forest Rotation of Sissoo (Dalbergia sissoo) Plantations in Bangladesh

Using various criteria, the paper estimates the optimal rotation period for Sissoo (Dalbergia sissoo) plantations in Bangladesh. Plantations data were collected during 1999-2000 from purposively selected Forest Divisions aged at least 5 years. Under the present management system, mode of marketing, market mechanism and all economic criteria for Bangladesh as a whole, the optimal rotation of Sissoo tree is estimated to be at 8 years for fuel wood and 12 or 13 years for timber. If the Mean Annual Increment (MAI) is considered as rotation criterion, rotation period as 6 years for fuel wood and 11 to 13 years for timber are suggested. The elimination rates varied from 10% to 72% depending on plantation year, location, biotic interference and sissoo mortality. Irrespective of locations, it was revealed that the highest NPV (Tk 6395599), IRR (85%), B/C ratio (6.57), and  (Tk 2608031) start from the 13 year-old plantation. Keywords: Sissoo, Optimal rotation, Forest management, Bangladesh

Program Evaluation Standards for Utility Facilitate Stakeholder Internalization of Evaluative Thinking in the West Virginia Clinical Translational Science Institute

Background: The Program Evaluation Standards (PES) can be considered established criteria for high quality evaluations. We emphasize PES Utility Standards and evaluation capacity building as we strive for meaningful application of our work in the real world. Purpose: We focused our methodology on understanding how stakeholders discussed utility and how their perceptions related to our evaluation work aligned with PES Utility Standards. Setting: The West Virginia Clinical Translational Science Institute (WVCTSI) is a statewide multi-institutional entity for which we conduct tracking and evaluation since 2012. Intervention: Sustained collaborative engagement of evaluation stakeholders with the goal of increasing their utilization of evaluation products and evaluative thinking. Research Design: Case study. Data Collection and Analysis: We interviewed five key stakeholders. Themes developed from analysis of PES Utility standard coding of interview data informed document analysis. Interview and document analysis were used to develop themes and illustrative examples, as well as to develop and describe a five-level Evaluation Uptake Scale. Findings: We describe shifts in initiation, use, and internalization of evaluative thinking by non-evaluation personnel that prompted development and application of an Evaluation Uptake Scale to capture increased evaluation capacity among stakeholders over time. We discuss how focus on PES Utility and evaluation capacity building facilitated such shifts and their implications for maximizing utility of evaluation activity in large complex programmatic evaluations. Keywords: Program evaluation standards, evaluation utility, evaluation capacity building