The purpose of this study is to evaluate the actions and results of the rural development policies and their effects on the efficiency and effectiveness of the rural development policy in the Sixth Development Plan and to apply the lessons learned in the Seventh Development Plan.

As to the purpose, the present research was applied and in terms of methodology, it was descriptive. In the general methodological framework of the research, to study the goals, outputs and consequences of sustainable rural development policies, policy monitoring method was used in order to monitor and evaluate the rural development policy in accordance with the Five-Year Sixth Development Plan. The statistical population of the research included the bills and laws of budgets and programs as well as reports on the performance of government and parliament in the field of rural development on the one hand, and critical and evaluation researches on rural development programs, on the other hand. In this regard, directional content analysis based on the above documents was used in the framework of policy monitoring method.

Evaluation of rural development policy's performance in development programs focusing on the Sixth Development Plan shows that despite the success in the outputs, in terms of their consequences, they do not correspond to the predetermined goals. Besides, the evaluation of actions and outputs of rural development policies indicate a serious imbalance between the ratio of employment and production credits to physical, service and infrastructure credits, as well as incompatibility of objectives and elements of rural development policy with bills and laws. In addition, findings of the experiences in the field of critique and evaluation of rural development programs, the lack of a comprehensive approach in designing a model for rural development and finally, the lack of a specialized and efficient agent for supporting rural development policy are all the main sources of failure in reaching the desired objectives and tasks of the rural development policies in the Sixth Development Plan.

Originality/Value:

 In addition to exposing a theoretical gap in the investigated area, this research has also explained the evaluation framework of the rural development policy based on the components of sustainable rural development. From a practical point of view, using the policy analysis method, it has provided the possibility for evaluating the performance of the rural development policy based on the latest implementation measures in the development plans.