Evaluation of the Performance of Rural Housing Programs and Their Impacts on the Quality of Construction in Rural Areas in the Fourth Development Plan (Case Study: Hormozgan Province)

Improving the living standards of rural people has been among the major concerns of the post-revolutionary state in Iran. For this purpose, the government has made an attempt for reorganizing the pre-revolutionary rural and agricultural administration. Enhancing the quality of rural housing has been one of major programs that systematically received a notable attention in recent years for various reasons. First of all considering the quality of life as a basic need, housing and enjoying a minimum of its standards is mostly defined as a basic right for all people. Secondly, according to the different country's national censuses of population and housing, rural housing, as compared to urban areas, is more vulnerable and less sustainable, mainly due to using less or low qualified materials in constructing rural houses. Thirdly, the periodic occurrence of natural disasters, like float and earthquake, has had the most ruining effect on rural people and making them more vulnerable. The problem of poor quality of rural constructions along with the rural housing vulnerability and, make the government consider the renovation of rural housings continuously at the top agenda of its rural development policy. In fact, since the second development plan, improving the conditions of housing in rural areas has constituted a main objective of the development plans. Housing Foundation of Islamic Revolution was to be the charge of various related initiatives to enhance the country's rural housing status. Since detailed report of the national Censuses of population and housing in various years had revealed a gloomy picture of rural housing for different parts of the country particularly for the province of Hormozghan, this province has been a Suitable major target for housing programs. Despite emphasis on significant role of the programs in enhancing the status of rural housing, no scholarly systematic study has been done for clarifying the effectiveness of mentioned programs. This study attempts to fill some of the existing gaps in related fields by focusing on Hormozgan Province. In other words, it aims to probe the fact that to some extent rural housing programs have succeeded in meeting their objectives. So two aspects of program evaluation have been taken into account: effectiveness, and impacts.