Members’ Publication

Strong and flexible Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) systems must be established immediately due to the Pacific Island Countries' (PICs') dynamic development landscape. Geographical dispersion, acute climate change vulnerability, and a variety of socioeconomic contexts present special challenges for international development organizations, especially UN agencies, which make it difficult to ensure accountability, promote learning, and support evidence-based decisionmaking. In order to improve program outcomes, build resilience, and promote community-focused sustainable development, this article contends that bolstering M&E systems throughout the Pacific is not just an operational improvement but also a strategic necessity. Existing frameworks, contextual difficulties, technological opportunities, and the vital significance of national ownership and inclusive approaches including the use of Utilization-Focused Evaluation (UFE) are all examined.

Effective incident detection is essential for emergency response and transportation management. Traditional methods relying on stationary technologies are often costly and provide limited coverage, prompting the exploration of crowdsourced data such as Waze. While Waze offers extensive coverage, its data can be unverified and unreliable. This study aims to identify factors affecting the reliability of Waze alerts and develop a predictive model to distinguish true incidents from false alerts using real-time Waze data, thereby improving emergency response times. Real crash data from the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) and crowdsourced data from Waze were matched using the Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (DBSCAN) algorithm to differentiate true and false alerts. A binary logit model was constructed to reveal significant predictors such as time categories around peak hours, road type, report ratings, and crash type. Findings indicate that the likelihood of accurate Waze alerts increases during peak hours, on streets, and with higher report ratings and major crashes. Additionally, multiple machine learning-based predictive models were developed and evaluated to forecast in real time whether Waze alerts correspond to actual incidents. Among those models, the Random Forest model achieved the highest overall accuracy (82.5%) and F1-score (82.8%), and an Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve (AUC-ROC) of 0.90, demonstrating its robustness and reliability for real-time incident detection. Gradient Boosting, with an AUC-ROC of 0.90 and Area Under the Precision–Recall Curve (AUC-PR) of 0.90, also performed strongly, particularly excelling at predicting true alerts. The analysis further emphasized the importance of key predictors such as time of day, report ratings, and road type. These findings provide actionable insights for enhancing the accuracy of incident detection and improving the reliability of crowdsourced traffic alerts, supporting more effective traffic management and emergency response systems.

The Readymade Garments Sector contributes significantly to Bangladesh's national economy. Gazipur district is the hub of this industrial agglomeration, contributing about 50% of the sectoral contribution to Gross domestic product. However, this sectoral infrastructure was not pre-planned, and there is an acute housing shortage for low-income people. The industrial workers live in informal houses with substandard living conditions. Community development is the integrated approach consisting of civic amenities, schools, playgrounds, shopping, and recreational facilities for low-income people to enrich their living standards. This study was conducted to assess the affordability of low-income people for providing housing and promoting community facilities, green space creation, and facilitating joyful urban life for the low-income people of Gazipur. The study was conducted on 300 randomly selected ready-made garment workers from different industrial and economic agglomerations to know about the affordability and payment potentials for the repayment of the monthly installments. The study reveals that about 66.6% of the respondents like to purchase between 801–1200 sq. ft. About 51.3 % of the workers are not interested in purchasing a house other than renting a house. Rather they are interested in constructing houses in their own districts. The intention rate of purchasing flats for the workers is 44.3%. The increasing rate of house construction is one of the major threats to agricultural land depletion. People are not satisfied with the amenities and facilities of urban life. The affordability of low-income people should be assessed through comprehensive research to resolve the acute housing problems of the high-density industrial area of Gazipur.

Amidst the expanding number of studies advocating for community involvement in tourism governance, limited emphasis has been rendered to comprehending the implications of residents' attachment with nature on their understandings and response towards tourism. This study addresses this gap by assessing the level of nature connectedness among residents and its impact on residents’ views of empowerment from tourism at Cox’s Bazar, a nature-based coastal destination in Bangladesh. Recognizing the significance of this relationship for effective destination management, the research blends the Contributions of Nature to People framework with Weber’s Theory of Formal and Substantive Rationality. Although the study shows a partial statistically significant connection between nature connectedness and support for tourism, as well as between economic empowerment and support for tourism in the study area, other areas of empowerment show an insignificant connection to nature, raising concerns about support for tourism and indicating an overall weak connection to nature. While residents are eager to portray Cox's Bazar to tourists, concerns about over-tourism persist, and variations across different parts of the study area reflect distinct characteristics influenced by locational and socioeconomic factors. These findings underscore the necessity of integrating residents' connection to nature into tourism development strategies, prioritizing initiatives that cultivate this bond to foster positive attitudes toward tourism and mitigate conflicts.

Amidst the expanding number of studies advocating for community involvement in tourism governance, limited emphasis has been rendered to comprehending the implications of residents' attachment with nature on their understandings and response towards tourism. This study addresses this gap by assessing the level of nature connectedness among residents and its impact on residents’ views of empowerment from tourism at Cox’s Bazar, a nature-based coastal destination in Bangladesh. Recognizing the significance of this relationship for effective destination management, the research blends the Contributions of Nature to People framework with Weber’s Theory of Formal and Substantive Rationality. Although the study shows a partial statistically significant connection between nature connectedness and support for tourism, as well as between economic empowerment and support for tourism in the study area, other areas of empowerment show an insignificant connection to nature, raising concerns about support for tourism and indicating an overall weak connection to nature. While residents are eager to portray Cox's Bazar to tourists, concerns about over-tourism persist, and variations across different parts of the study area reflect distinct characteristics influenced by locational and socioeconomic factors. These findings underscore the necessity of integrating residents' connection to nature into tourism development strategies, prioritizing initiatives that cultivate this bond to foster positive attitudes toward tourism and mitigate conflicts.