Identifying Factors Affecting Rural Development Policy Failures in Iran

The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the factors affecting rural development policy failures in Iran, which is practical in terms of purpose, and the data collection is descriptive-survey and the data collection tool is a questionnaire. The desired factors were collected and interviews with experts and specialists were conducted with targeted sampling and then the complex relationships between the system components were investigated using the interpretive structural model. Finally, by using MICMAC analysis, the type of components was determined according to the impact and effectiveness on other components. The results showed that the effective components of not benefiting from a good governance model to achieve sustainable development, the dominance of the centralized rural planning system and the centralized and ineffective monitoring and evaluation system, and the direct intervention of the government and the failure to accept the role of supervisor and facilitator, with the power of influence 17, 16 and 16 are placed in the sixth level. Due to their high impact, these components act as the infrastructure and platform of the model, and in order to reform the policy structure of rural development in Iran, these factors should be emphasized. The inability of rural development policies to promote added value and the expected productivity in the agricultural sector, the lack of attention to the index of environmental capacities and ecological footprint in rural development policies, and the lack of capacity building and environmental empowerment (conserving water and soil resources, promoting sustainable agriculture).