Study of Role of Participatory Planning on Rural Poverty Alleviation, A Quantitative Method (Case Study: Firuzkuh, Lazur Village)

Despite prevailing decentralization of rural development programs in Iran, there are projects that the experts tried to intervene stakeholders to fulfill all or most of the project, including the Hableh-rud National Project. This project has sought to engage local participation and maximize communities’ interventions in planning and implementation of natural resource conservation projects. The main objective of the project is natural resources conservation through rural poverty alleviation and reducing the deleterious effects of unstable economic of the region on resources, thus, this project seems suitable for this research. In pilot villages it was attempted to shape NGOs and local organizations till villagers were be able to monitor and manage designing and implementing of the projects. In the other hand, with the elapse of time and the impact of projects and organizations involved, the effects of rural participatory on the poverty indicators has been measurable. Thus among of pilot villages, Lazur in Firuzkuh was selected as the only successful pilot village (according to experts) in all pilot villages of watershed subproject in Hable-rud basin project. The results showed that rural poverty reduction projects in monetary approach should attend to non-monetary approach, and should not equate all parts of the country, and should be decentralized and strategic, and local community should participate and intervene directly in all levels. Based on international experiences and the case study, for decreasing financial tension, due to local priorities, programs may be limited to a specific dimensions or specific areas. Our results show that rural participation can target material and spiritual aspects of poverty and can help reduce it.