Ranking of Iran's Provinces with Data Envelopment Analysis Approach (Using Human Development Index)

To achieve the national goals, specifically “Fourth Development Plan Objectives”; it is necessary to coordinate thetake into account national goals with the regional actualities. For this purpose, resources should be allocated on the basis of regional capabilities and advantages. Since, wWelfare promotion is the most important social goal necessary for human excellencein most countries, the development programs based on the the regional economies planning process must consider the degree of human development in the different areas and provinces of country.regions of the economy. Each region needs special plans with regard to its special characteristics. This will necessitate the identification of past and present status of different regions using scientific methods. In this paper, for the first time in Iran, we apply “Data Envelopment Analysis” to consider the human development in Iran's provinces and will measure the efficiencies of each provincesprovince in the resource utilization to produce human development index. As a matter of fact, Tthe results typically have shownshow that undeveloped provinces in overall general have higher efficiencies than developed provinces. Therefore, Iit will be necessary to pay more attention to the undeveloped regions in the future planning.