Networking Event: News Coverage

Dear All

Please follow the link to see the media coverage of networking event. I am looking for your comments.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/172858/taking-the-first-step-a-platform-to-bring-students-and-organisation-heads-together/#comment-226640

Best,

Mohazzam

Anticipating the Exam Questions

Dear Program Evaluation students

I am expecting you to anticipate the program evaluation questions. I will keep giving my response on your inputs. Select five best question among the total contributed ones and write there answers. You can come to discuss them with me.

Best,
M.

WHO HAS SHUT DOWN GEO SUPER?

Dear Fellows,

First go on the following link

http://pakistanmediawatch.com/2011/04/13/who-has-shut-down-geo-super/?

then comment as per your knowledge and analysis.

Thanks.

Mohib Baloch

Nothing New ?

Dear GPP Students

Hope you guys are fine and doing well. There is so many things assigned to you and I haven't seen any of your responses at all. Especially, students working on Program Evaluation, Policy Analysis and Natural Resource and Environmental Economics.

Please write about your project and what is the current status of your work. What about your book review and other stuff is going ?

Best,
Moazzam

What is your Policy Analysis Project ?

Dear Students

Please mention what is your Policy Analysis Project for this semester ? Who is team leader ?

Best,

Mohazzam

What is your Program Evaluation Project ?

Dear Students

Please elaborate and explain your project which you are about to undertake in your Program Evaluation course. Other students please comment and give suggestion. You will be evaluated on your quality of comments.

Difference between Prevalance and Rate ?

Please comment what is the different between prevalence and and rate ?

I need your comments.

Most Typical Face on the World

Dear Students

Please check this video :

http://uk.lifestyle.yahoo.com/family-parenting/most-typical-face-in-the-world-revealed-blog-33-yahoo-lifestyles.html

It has some great fact which can appreciated on one hand and challenged on the other.

The economies of the Arab world lag behind the West. Is Islam to blame? by John Cassidy

Prophet Motive

The economies of the Arab world lag behind the West. Is Islam to blame?

by John Cassidy February 28, 2011

ABSTRACT: ANNALS OF ECONOMICS about whether Islam has been a deterrent to economic growth in the Arab world. After the revolution comes the test of governing. From Paris in 1789 to Cairo and Tunis in 2011, the task is the same: translating the euphoria of the uprising into lasting material progress. If the new governments of Egypt and Tunisia are to have any chance of satisfying the demands of the revolutionaries, they need to start out with an accurate assessment of what has been holding back their economies. But what if a major culprit is Islam itself? An influential line of analysis points to that conclusion. “No one can understand the economic performance of the Muslim nations without attending to the experience of Islam as faith and culture,” David Landes, the Harvard economic historian, wrote in “The Wealth and Poverty of Nations.” After 9/11, Bernard Lewis, the Princeton historian, developed this narrative further, arguing that the pervasive influence of Islam prevented many Arab countries from properly addressing the issue of why they were falling behind. The notion that religion plays a central role in economic development dates back to Max Weber’s 1905 treatise, “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.” Modern economists tend to put greater emphasis on the way beliefs are codified and institutionalized than on the beliefs in themselves. Many Islamic societies were slow to develop banks, commercial courts, joint-stock companies, and other business organizations. In a new book, “The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East,” the economist Timur Kuran blames social customs and religious rules dating back to the earliest days of Islam. Discusses the way business partnerships and inheritance practices traditionally worked in many Islamic countries. But, before consigning a fifth of humanity to the dustbin of economic history, one might consider, more broadly, whether it makes sense to place such an emphasis on religion in explaining the underdevelopment of so many Muslim countries. To start with, it’s worth noting—and Kuran and Lewis, to their credit, do note it—that Islam, at least in its original formulation, was far from hostile to business. As the centuries passed, many Muslim regions fell badly behind the West, but the most immediate explanation involves not Islam but predatory governance and colonialism. More recent history provides examples of Muslim countries seeking to engage in the global economy—and of some of them succeeding. Discusses the recent economic gains made by Indonesia, Malaysia, and Turkey. Also considers how demographic changes in Egypt and Tunisia may affect economic development there. Day-to-day worship of the sort practiced by hundreds of millions of Muslims is no more what is holding back the Middle East than Hinduism was what held back India or Roman Catholicism was what held back Ireland. Despite the arguments of new Weberians, people have always found a way to serve their gods and Mammon, too.

Newsletter for Government and Public Policy Department - NDU

Newsletter GPP

Dear Students,
As we are edging closer to the third anniversary of the Faculty of
Contemporary Studies, this maybe a good occasion to celebrate the
highlights of these three years and create a point of contact and
connection among students of various semesters of GPP and alumni, and
also with other departments of FCS as well as with NDU community at
large. A quarterly GPP newsletter may well serve as such a contact.

There are many success stories among us:
Some students found lucrative employment opportunities while working
on their term papers and MSc Projects whereas some have already
successfully entered their professional lives. Some students have
hobbies that can serve as a source of inspiration for the rest of us,
and they may motivate others to spend their leisure time in a more
beneficial way.

Please share with us your success story and thoughts. It may inspire
many. You can also share a brief commentary on your experience at the
department.
You may contribute photographs.

Please send your submissions to me at asifahasan@gmail.com or drop by
in person.

More ideas to make this newsletter a success are welcome.
best
Asifa

Environmental Risks and Challenges for Pakistan

In an interactive session of the course Natural Resources and Environment Economics, we have seen some important aspects of Environmental Risks and Challenges being faced by world in a movie by Al Gore "An inconvenient Truth".The main issues which came into limelight includes the emission of GHG (Green House Gases), Global Warming, Climate Change, CO2 Emission and Kyoto Protocol. Most of us are familiar with the terms but I am here describing them in context of Pakistan:

GHG Green Houses Gases:

These are the gases including the water vapors, carbon dioxide, ozone, methane and nitrous oxide present in the atmosphere. This is mostly related to the green house effect. Green house effect means that energy from the sun in the source of solar rays (Heat Energy) come onto the surface of the Earth and is mostly absorbed by our Earth. In normal practice, the most of the energy should be or must be emitted back to the atmosphere especially its layer Mesosphere. Instead of this, the heat rays keep present in the troposphere where we live or which is the lowest layer of atmosphere. As a result most of the heat is absorbed by our Earth surface resulting in lessen the amount of moisture on the surface of the Earth and brining extremely high temperature for the Earth. Pakistan contributes to the 0.4% of GHG emission of th world having a ranking at 135^th. Although it is quite low Inspite of the fact in the recent floods of June 2010 the country receive all its rainfall of the monsoon season 300mm in 36 Hours period, all due to the GHG and Global Warming.

Global Warming:

This is the increase of temperature of Earth Surface. According to Ministry of Environment, the climate related damages and cost faced by Pakistan due to disasters which have its grass roots in Global Warming are estimated to $4billion. On the other hands, if we touch the Economical point of view, Global Warming has also reduced our per acre yield or rice, wheat and cotton also. Global Warming has also resulted into cyclones also. There has always remained a threat for Pakistan Coastal Areas including the Sindh and Balochistan. One must ponder how Global Warming has effect on Cyclones. It is simple but complicated question. When the temperature of oceans increased say it is more than 30 degree Celsius (we are discussing high temperature only due to Global Warming) then the air from the ocean rises above the surface of the ocean and as result creating lower pressure of gases on the surface of ocean. The air from the surrounding has a higher pressure. The process of diffusion takes place and the air currents from the higher pressure to lower pressure move and this cycles continues and as a result cyclones are produce.

Climate Change:

Any change in the climate due to the human activity is called climate change. The term Climate Change is roughly used while discussing GHG, Ozone Layer Depletion e.t.c. Ozone Layer depletion here means that the depletion / breakage of Ozone Layer which is present in layer of atmosphere after troposphere called stratosphere. Ozone layer served as a protection of Ultra Violet rays, damaging heat rays from the sun into the Earth. Due to human activity the tendency of protection is decreasing day by day brining in Climate Change and many other problems.

CO2 Emissions:

CO2 emissions means the storage and emission of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere general through carbon cycle which is a natural cycles. But due to climate change this CO2 cycle is disturbed. Pakistan contributes towards the 1.92 tones of Per Capita Emission of CO2 as per UNDP.

Conclusion:

Dear Blog users, have you ever noticed that cloudy nights are warmer than normal nights. The main reason is that clouds prevent the the radiation of heat from land and air. In this way the temperature is usually warmer. Just imagine, that due to human beings activities we have disturbed everything and as result we have brought the clouds of disaster on our atmosphere which are making our Earth Surface warmer and warmest.

Let us discuss and make a list of Risks and Challenges for Pakistan due to the above mention issues:

1. Floods

2. Cyclones

3. Droughts

4. Radioactive Health Hazards

5. Agriculture and Land Problems

6. Deforestation Problems

Program Evaluation - Validity ?

Dear students - Try to be a devils' advocate!

I am interested to know your understanding about the different validities ? How implementation evaluation and process evaluation can be effected by these validities ?

Though, we have discussed about the threats to validity ? Please discuss how these threats can support in terms of implementation and process evaluation ?

How to do an Outcome Evaluation

Usually Outcome Evaluation is based on one of the following designs.

1. Randomized Controlled Trial

2. Comparison Group

3. Pre-post Comparison

Designs are usually chosen considering the available resources for conducting evaluation. Even though Randomized Controlled Trial design is considered to be the strongest among the three, it is complicated and more resource intensive as compared to pre-post comparison.

Randomized Controlled Trial

In this design, we use two or more groups. Both of them undergo the same pre and post-tests, however, one group is assigned a treatment, the other might be on a viable alternative, or even placebo.

Comparison Group

The difference that Comparison Group design has with Randomized Control Trial is that here the comparison group is arbitrarily and/deliberately chosen, rather then randomly. They are chosen so as to keep the two groups as much alike before the treatment as possible.

Pre-Post Design

Here, target audience is assessed on the same indicators and over the same time period before and after the treatment. They are less statistically rigorous and can produce useful results. Follow-up in these time-series designs is a drawback, however. Also, there is not much room to identify confounding factors that might have affected the program.

Solomon Four Group Design

Taking further the discussion of pre-test post-test control group design, and analyzing its problems, "Solomon Four Group Design" must be considered.

This design has two basic benefits;

1. It checks many of the internal validity threats, by providing more control over variables. And,
2. Due to the inclusion of two extra groups, the confounding variables influence can be checked, if any.

Explanation of Solomon Four Group Design

We will first take four randomized groups, Group A, Group B | Group C and Group D.
Pretest will be applied to the first two groups only.
Treatment will be provided to Group A and Group C.
Followed by Post Test of all groups.

First the post-test of Group C and D will be compared with that of Group A and Group B, if the results are considerably different, it is right to assume that the pre-test has had an impact on the final result.
Second, comparison between Group B's pretest and Group D's post-test will establish if any external factor has caused the change.
Third, Group A and Group C post-tests will be compared. If the results differ, which should ideally not, we will know that the pre-test caused the change.
And finally, Group B and Group D post-test comparison will let us know, if without the "treatment", only pre-test has caused the change.

This method is not very common in usage due to its high cost, technicalities involved, and usually higher time constraint of dealing with four random groups.

I will appreciate if Sir can add further to it.

Six Steps to Useful Outcome Evaluation

So, I came across a presentation which outlines six steps to useful outcome evaluation. I will briefly share:

Step # 1: Mission and Goal Statements
Mission Statement: Are the problems that the said organization wants to address properly identified? Along with target population and desired results?
Goals: Broad statement of desired outcome(s).

Step # 2: Outcome Objectives
As we studied in the formulation of problem, this has to be either an increase or decrease of something. In terms of change. Long term outcomes should be related to short and medium term milestones necessary for the achievement of the goal.
Example: As in my report, CSF plans to increase Pakistan's competitiveness rank to 55 from 101.

Step # 3: Performance Standards
How much change is expected, how many targets will be affected, and by when.

Step # 4: Measures and Indicators
Defining the yardstick through which you will measure the expected change.

Step # 5: Data Collection and Analysis
Pretty self-explanatory.

Step # 6: Dissemination and Program Modification
Interpreting the degree to which goals have been achieved, what changes should be considered, if any? for improvement. And finally, how these deductions will be shared.

What are the different Criterion for Policy Analysis ?

Dear Policy Analysis Students

Please tell me the different criteria which you have encountered in Eugene Bardach book. What are the trade-off between these criterion ?

An insightful response will be appreciated. However, if you want to narrate different criterion for sake of explanation for others class-fellows. It will be greatly appreciated.

Policy Analysis - How you will come up with policy alternative ?

Dear Students

Now you are at stage where you are working on your policy alternatives. Please tell me how you will design your alternatives - what special consideration you will have, when you will be suggesting your alternatives ? What should be the total number of alternatives ? and Why ?

What are the Problems with Pre-Test Post-Test control group design

Dear Students

We discussed about design consideration and focused on Pre-Test Post-Test control group design. What are the problems with this design ? Please mention case where you would not like to use for your studies.

Also, there will be great appreciation in terms of grade for those who can initiate a new thread!