VILLAGE AND DEVELOPMENT
Year:2011 | Volume:12 | Issue:1|Papers Count:13

In far past, the local management of rural areas was considered by large and small land owners. During the land reform of 1960s and the removal of large landowners from rural scene, the authority and responsibility of local and traditional management reached to its minimum level, and govenmentalization of rural areas increased rapidly. Consequently, rural people participation in decision making was declined considerably. This has continued to the present time in the new forms of Islamic Rural Councils and Village Assistance Offices.In this study the importance of rural management was discussed and its ignorance considered as a barrier to development. Any design of rural management system should be based on trust and beliefs of rural people.

In this study, survey method was used to examine the effective factors that improve rural women participation in rural micro credit funds. The statistical population consisted of the members of rural women credit fund in Kermanshah province. The effective factors ranked according to their importance: rural women participation in planning, the provision of necessary and continuous training for the members, generating the feeling of belonging and self confident in rural women. The important factors were categorized based on the results of factor analysis. The identified factors were training-management, social-psychological and participation. These factors explained 71 percents of total variation in participation construct.

Reducing unemployment and developing employment opportunities in rural and urban areas are among the main goals of development policies in many countries including Iran. Despite the allocation of different development budgets in recent years, the province has not developed well enough in comparison to other provinces and it is particularly more apparent in rural areas. The present study was a research project about rural development with an emphasis on employment and entrepreneurship. It was an applied research and a survey and the data was analyzed by SWOT method. The study findings indicated the presence of appropriate opportunities in rural areas, which have not been discovered and tapped yet and these provide possibilities for the development of job opportunities, economy and rural development.

The present study applied modernization approach, emphasizing on Smelser’s theory, to study the consequences of socio-economic development in Iranian Kurdistan after the Islamic revolution. The study used qualitative methodology, field ethnography and subject analysis to analyze the data. The study findings mentioned the decline of agriculture and livestock, relative mechanization of agriculture, conflict between kinship loyalty and meritocracy, poverty aversion, weakening of traditions, knowledge institutionalization, decline of productive economic activities, nuclearization of family, horizontalization of power structure, achieved social mobility, and increase in work migration as socio-economic consequences of development. The final discussed subject in the present study is unbalanced development. In spite of the fact that the region has experienced some elements of development, the socio-economic development consequences of the area looks very unbalanced.

Assessing resident’s views about the environment they live in, is one of the most important method to measure the achievement of targets and the level of success of village town projects. The present study was carried out in the second half of 2009 to measure the level of resident’s satisfaction from the environmental quality of Ashegh Abad village town. To this end, the study examined the relationship between satisfaction, as dependent variable, and personal and relational-locational characteristics of individuals as independent variables.The results indicated significant relationship between the sex, marital status, age, the level of education, household income of individuals, and relational-locational variables with satisfaction construct. Regression results showed age, level of education and household income explained 49.7 percent of variation in the level of individual satisfaction from the quality of residential environment.

Inequality is the problem of the present century and it receives many attentions. Poverty and inequality are the main reasons for deprivation, migration, expansion of slum areas, crime and deviance; therefore, they should be examined thoroughly. The main purpose of this study was to examine development inequality – deprivation, vulnerability and basic needs dimensions - in central and border areas of rural Iran as an objective phenomenon. This is a descriptive and analytical study. This study used systematic random method to select a sample size of 224 sub-districts and examined the trend of changes during the period 1986 – 2006 by looking at scattering coefficient and Gini coefficient. Research findings indicated the highest inequality was related to social dimension and an increase in center availability has been created more opportunities.

Cooperative sector has the perspective to maintain 25% of the country’s economy, it covers a large number of small, and medium enterprises. Due to their small scale, they are not able to produce their products economically and they receive outside services at a very high cost to resolve their financial, technical, marketing and selling problems. On the other hand, the growth of production costs and low level of productivity and capital in cooperative units are among the main problems of cooperative sector. One of the solutions to this problem is to organize cooperative agglomeration to practice a uniform management for member cooperatives and to benefit from the economy of scale through the membership of similar and complementary units in the production of a specific product. This study has been carried out during the years 2008 and 2009. The results of economic appraisal of 16 individual livestock units and agglomerated livestock cooperatives indicated that economic indicators such as rate of return of capital, productivity of production units and annual benefit were higher in agglomerated cooperatives than in individual livestock units due to economy of scale. Based on this there is feasible to organize these in the mentioned county conditional upon the provision of capital resources.

Improving nomad subsistence situation is imperative for the development of their cultural and well being indicators. The production of nomads is supplied to the market through intermediaries and they are pick up the profit. Due to the lack of access to markets, nomads are facing problems for the provision of daily requirements. In this study previous research were examined thoroughly and a model was designed about the nomads problems and related strategies. The model has been justified by the recommendations from authorities and nomad people in Firouzabad region which is situated in Fars province. The current problems of nomads have been categorized in three main groups namely: subsistence, education, and health. Subsequently a project has been designed and recommended, it was in the form of a multi-functional market that remove the intermediaries, boost the production of handicrafts, provide job opportunities for nomads, generate possibilities for social exchange with nomads from other tribes and city residents, and provide the supply of training, health and welfare facilities to nomad people.

In many parts of the world particularly in rural areas, women are more deprived and vulnerable than men. The main purpose of this study is to examine socioeconomic status of rural women and the impact of social beliefs on it.  The study area is mountain –foot villages of Foumanat. The main methods for data collection are direct observation, interview with Islamic council members, and a questionnaire. The data are analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics. The results indicate that a less developed rural community has beliefs and particular institutional system, which are responsible for women’s low status.  Increasing the awareness and changing the beliefs can improve socio economic status of rural women and rural society development trend.