Assessment of Development Planning Method in Iran (1989-2009)

This paper tries to evaluate Iran’s development planning method during the 1989-2009 with the aim of formulating some strategies to stay away from previous unsuccessful experiences. In other words the researcher has in mind the improvement of development planning method though he does not intend to propose any prescriptive base or content for the development plans. To this end, the paper reviews contemporary approaches to development and macro-scale planning methods; then it examines planning experiences in Iran and over the world especially after the Islamic Revolution in order to identify strengths and weaknesses of Iran’s development plans. This survey asserts there are four types of content-related and procedural challenges in the path to accomplish development plans in Iran. This paper advises that while Islamic-Iranian development model is still being formulated, it would be better to uses institutional approach as it better considers the political, cultural and legal aspects of societies. In the end, the paper discusses solutions of the mentioned problem in the leading development planning methods.