Effective Performance of Rural Assistance Offices in Rural Development from the Perspectives of Rural Assistants; Challenges Ahead: A Case Study of Fars Province of Iran

This study aimed at exploring the effective performance of Rural Assistance Offices (Dehyaris) in rural development and challenges ahead from Rural Assistants (Dehyars) perspective in Fars province of Iran. It was a descriptive-correlation study based on survey quantitative methods. The statistical population included all the rural assistants in the province (1231 individuals). The method of sampling was multistage stratified sampling method, through which 145 people were identified as the sample by calculating Cochran’s formula. The results of descriptive analysis showed that three challenges of insufficient funds of rural assistance offices, inappropriate and excessive public expectations of rural assistants, and high unemployment rate in the villages were the most important challenges of these institutions. The study results of factor analysis also revealed that challenges ahead of effective performance of the rural assistance offices can be summarized into six factors including bureaucratic, the lack of planning, economic, cultural and social, infrastructure-equipment and cognitive challenges. These factors explained about 66.66 percent of the total variance of the performance challenges ahead of the rural assistance offices.