Foresighting of Governance of small Border cities Case study: oraman Takht and Sarvabad cities

A range of external and internal factors at the local, regional, national and global scales affect the whole and governance process of sustainable development in small towns and address the complexity of urban systems and widespread uncertainties in the future. The future of small towns and the process of achieving sustainable development in these cities has become increasingly difficult. Thus, focusing on the applications of foresight in governance and the aspects of governance for sustainable development, the present study attempted toidentify future governance scenarios for sustainable development in oraman Takht and Sarvabad, Kurdistan Province, Iran. The analysis was based on forward-looking governance for sustainable development in small cities. Data was collected in an interactive-expert-oriented approach and then analyzed in a quantitative-qualitative method (integrated method). This research was an integrated descriptive-analytical and exploratory study. The findings can be discussed in four sections as follows: 1. the identification of key obstacles to governance in sustainable development using desk-study, Real-time Delphi (RTD), and cross-impact analysis (MICMAC); 2. the identification of effective drivers on the future governance of sustainable development in the studied cities using desk-study, and Real-time Delphi (RTD) to prioritize in terms of importance and uncertainty; 3. the formulation of scenarios; and, 4. modeling the status of obstacles to governance in sustainable development in each of the scenarios using the fuzzy cognitive map (FCM) and presenting an explanatory model of governance in sustainable development in oraman Takht and Sarvabad, Kurdistan Province, Iran. The results showed that based on three critical system uncertainties, considering the internal incompatibility of the scenarios, from eight possible scenarios, a total of four scenarios were selected, and finally, the status of the eight key obstacles identified in each of the scenarios was examined. Excluding one scenario, which had decreased barriers, in other scenarios, barriers to governance increased.