Analysis of the Network Governance System for the Sustainable Development of Deprived Regions in Iran

More than 77% of the regions in Iran are classified as medium to very deprived areas from the point of view of economic, social and environmental sustainability indicators. Since the failure to provide appropriate platforms for development governance is considered as the reason for the failure of development programs, the present study investigates the development governance system of the deprived areas of the country and emphasizes the role of network governance in solving problems of complex systems; It has analyzed the power distribution structure among the legal actors of the sustainable development of deprived areas of the country. For this purpose, after reviewing the laws and regulations of the deprived areas of the country, based on the laws of the 6th five-year development plan, 38 legal responsibilities and 39 institutions/organizations responsible and collaborators for the development of the deprived areas of the country were extracted. The matrix of actors' cooperation network by using the indicators of degree centrality, betweenness centrality, density and coherence; Geodesic distance and intersection points were analyzed. The findings of the analysis of the network governance structure of the development of the deprived areas of the country indicate the concentration of decision-making power in the government and the imbalance in the distribution of power between actors, and without fundamental reform of the governance structure of the development network of the deprived areas of the country, we cannot expect to solve the problems of socio-economic complex systems in the deprived areas of the country.  Finally, the policy proposals for the development of network governance according to the results of the review of national laws and regulations and development plans and the results of the analysis of the governance network for the development of the deprived areas of the country in the direction of balancing the distribution of legal power between responsible and cooperative institutions based on opportunity The participation of key actors including  state institutions, private sector and popular institutions in the decision-making process is presented.