Effectives of Individual - Economical Factors on Rural Women's Participation in Productive Cooperation (Case Study: Sports Ball Making Cooperation in Paave & Uramanat District)

IntroductionSince the introduction of development to countries after the World War II, this process has been the most significant issue, especially in developing countries. The realization of development demands exploiting the talents, capacities and active participation of people in different stages of development process, so thatdevelopment and participation are considered to be interwoven and the process issucceeded when it is concurrent with the increase in people's participation especiallylocal individuals.MethodologyConcerning people's participation (PP) in participatory activities, in particular, propounding the subject of participatory approaches like PRA and RRA was theresult of dissatisfaction and lack of success of rural development (RD) activitiesbefore the 1980s. During that time, the dominant thought and direction of RD wasbased on two essential principles: 1) emphasizing the role of ‘individuals outside thesocial system’ as the planners and decision-makers of the main projects andactivities of RD. 2) The thought “we know and they do not know” where ‘we’referred to the outsiders and experts and ‘they’ referred to local people, shows thatthey ignored indigenous knowledge. Considering the failure of many RD projectsand programs in the period before the 1980s, impressions, attitudes and ideas inrelation to RD were changed during the subsequent three decades. The issue of‘project ownership’ and local NGOs gained significance up to date. It was realizedthat rural people had to have a sense of ownership of development process to followand achieve the desired results. Before the 1980s, existing approaches to RD paidlittle attention to the active role of local people in RD, especially the marginalizedgroups (women) in rural areas. Therefore, in this period, decision-making andallocation of resources were carried out mostly by outsider experts of RD (i.e. in thecapital or in the local governmental organizations) in developing countries, andpeople’s involvement in making decisions on RD projects was insignificant. Inaddition, local people’s ideas about their needs and problems related to theirenvironment were rarely enquired.ResultsBased on the recent statistics released from the UN, 23% of Iranian women participate in the economic sector in contrast with 77 % of men's participation, ofwhich 34% of women attend the agricultural sector versus 24% for men. The ruralwomen as the half of human population in rural areas play a significant role in socialand cultural realms along with economic roles. Accordingly, it is important to payattention to how can us increase their participation and involvement in developmentprocess, especially because past research efforts, so often ignored or misrepresentedthem. Most of the women are illiterate or less educated and often unable to attend orcontinue formal training courses, social or economic services. In these conditions,rural women remain inactive with less chance to develop their own abilities. As aresult, this situation has caused the women to be the most vulnerable group in ruraldevelopment programs. In spite of their active role in socio-economic aspects,promotion of rural women's status, having participated them in formal economicsector is of greater importance and regarded to be the necessary condition forsustainable development in developing countries. To recognize the manner ofwomen's participation in development and the influential factors, during 1970s theterm “women in development”, and in the 1980s “Gender and development” wereapplied in resources and discourses (Ellis & Biggs, 2001). Thereafter, in mostdeveloping countries, strategies for active participation of women in developmentput into practice to remove or reduce existing barriers and obstacles. Yet, mostplanners of rural development policy believe erroneously that farmers and ruralworkers are mostly men.ConclusionIn recent decades, social scientists focus on the importance of individual, economic and social factors that affecting women's life, directly or indirectly, to provide an environment for the promotion of their participation in rural development process. The co-ops established in rural areas are the main institutions as NGOs which could enhance rural communitie's capacity through applying unique practices andapproaches subsequently, attention to rural women's situation, attempt to recognizeand evaluate their activities and remove the main barriers of improving theirparticipation in different formal institutes at village level, including co-ops are thenecessary steps towards sustainable rural development. The logic beyond thisattempt is the necessity of using all the potential human resources towarddevelopment goals. The aim of this study is to explore some socio-economic factorsaffecting woman's participation in co-op from member's point of view. The paperbegins with an overview of the theoretical concepts on the issue of participation,especially on the case of rural women, and follows by a description of methodologyof the study, and then findings are presented following by conclusion andrecommendations