Journal of Sustainable Rural Development
Volume:3 Issue: 1, Aug 2019

Poverty is a challenge facing all countries but worst in Sub-Sahara African. Ending poverty in its all form is the Nation’s 2030 core goals where Ethiopia is striving. Therefore, to step forward the effort, it is necessary to assess rural poverty. Accordingly, the study intended to investigate the determinants of rural poverty at the household level in Tenta district, South Wollo Zone. A mixed research design is employed to frame the study and 196 representative samples are identified using a multistage sampling technique from three agroecological zones. Primary data are collected through a detailed structured household survey which involves questionnaires, semi-structured interview and FGD techniques. Cost of Basic Needs (CBN) method and a binary logistic regression model is used for analyzing data. The result unveils that the total poverty line of the study area is 387.43 ETB per person per month and 4649.16 ETB per year where 67.3% of the societies are poor. The probability of rural household flees from poverty increases as they own beehive, large farmland size, oxen and small ruminant animals, and as the household headed by a male. On the other hand, family size and non/off-farm activities increase the probability of poor. Therefore, sex of household head, farmland holding size, beehive ownership, number of oxen and number of small ruminants, household size and non/off-farm activities were determinant factors of rural poverty. The national, and regional governments should work together on family planning, farm income diversification and design gender-based anti-poverty development policy to curb poverty.

This research aims to first discover the pattern of rural development around Tehran metropolis and then compare the finding with smart growth principles; finally, it assesses the impact of sustainable development factors on rural growth patterns. In this study, library research, document reviews, structured interviews and questionnaires were applied to collect data. The present study is a quantitative one regarding the nature and method of data collection. The statistical population of this study consists of the villages around Tehran metropolis that have a population growth rate above 3% and the population between 10000-1000 having local management. Radar and SPSS software were used to analyze the collected data. Villages around Tehran metropolis failed to adapt to smart growth principles, Therefore, the growth pattern of the rural areas around Tehran metropolis is a diffuse growth pattern. Moreover, the physical dimension of sustainable development had the greatest impact on the growth pattern of rural areas. The proximity of villages to the metropolis of Tehran has made them more vulnerable to drastic changes and the growth pattern of the villages tends towards the sprawl growth pattern. In fact, villages affected by the metropolis of Tehran have a scattered texture, high population growth, reduced agricultural land area, high physical growth rate, environmental pollution, visual pollution, etc. In fact, based on the principles of smart growth pattern, the evaluation of the villages around Tehran metropolis reflects the fact that these villages follow a sprawl growth pattern in which the rural programs have not been able to move within the framework of sustainable development.

The present study aims at describing the general status of non-resident agriculture holders in rural areas. Moreover, it tries to not only investigate the hotspots of non-resident agriculture holders but also analyze its spatial pattern across the county of Iran. Besides, the current study will analyze the most effective factors on forming each hotspot across the Country.

The study is a kind of descriptive-analytic one. The data are adopted from agriculture census of Iran Statistic Center in 2003 and 2014. They have been analyzed by spatial statistic techniques in GIS environment.

The findings reveal that the spatial distribution of non-resident agriculture holders is heterogeneous across the Country. The findings from spatial statistics indicate the existence of two main hotspots of non-resident agriculture holders across the towns; the first hotspot has been formed in central Iran and the northern regions of the Country, while the other one has been formed in the west.

The increase of non-resident agriculture holders in rural area which has been formed in the frame of rural-urban linkages, leads to increase smallholdings, decrease agriculture productivity, and weaken the balance between rural population and agriculture capacities for production and employment. Therefore, it acts like a barrier in the process of Sustainable rural development.

Nowadays, communities intends to create brands in the field of tourism for various reasons. The most important reasons are to signalize a specific location or tourism destination in order to encourage tourists to spend more, and improve the standards and quality of life of residents. This study seeks to investigate the effects of tourism brands on the quality of rural life in the study area.

The research is an applied one conducted in a descriptive-analytical method. A major part of the data was collected using field studies and sampling (Cochran formula) from 167 households of 9263 rural households in the study area.

Research findings suggest that there is a positive and 99% significant relationship between tourism brands and all components of life quality. Rural tourism development can provide villagers with incentives to stay, social justice, a sense of belonging, more benefits from the investments, services and facilities, satisfaction with living space and environmental facilities in rural areas.

The path analysis tests in several stages showed that ‘appropriate infrastructure’ as one of the indicators in the independent variable (rural tourism brand) with 40.4 percent had the most significant effect on improving the quality of rural life. This paper contributes to the literature by including various variables in the tourism brand. Therefore, this paper has a new subject and, in practical aspects, it tries to take a general assessment to find out the impact of rural brand tourism on the quality of rural life in Iran.

Health analysis of environmental quality requires available and special indices matched completely with reality which can provide the possibility of full recognition of studying community. In fact, it tends to present a new methodological framework by applying expert surveys.

Therefore, 153 indices including 21 ecological indices, 21 economic indices, 50 social indices and 61 physical indices are applied to assess and evaluate health sustainability. Identifying the related components and indices to the assessment of health environmental quality in the rural areas to determine if the identified components and indices are able to measure the health of environmental quality in the rural areas. Lorestan province in Iran with 11 cities (divisions) was selected as a sample.

The findings from the field findings indicate that the designed components and indices could evaluate the health status of environmental quality in rural areas. The findings from single-sample T test show that descriptive T and the health of environmental quality test are in an undesirable level in term of components like (economic, physical, social and ecological).

Besides, the findings from utility Radar indicate that 18 villages are in a complete bad situation, while 12 ones are in a fairly weak situation in terms of all aspects of environmental quality health; none has a moderate and complete optimistic status.

Considering the community-based approach in tourism development planning influence the success of clean and responsible tourism activities through empowering local tourism stakeholders and improving sustainable rural development. However, many countries such as Iran have failed to improve the indices of empowering local tourism stakeholders, due to the emphasis on the "state-led approach" in tourism development planning. Accordingly, different outcomes of improving the sustainable rural development indicator are obtained.

The present study was conducted by descriptive-analytical method to explain empowering local tourism stakeholders. The sample included 351 local stakeholders.

The results indicated that sectional-oriented in the tourism planning approach, with expert- driven and traditional approaches and economic growth, failed to consider the issue of empowering local tourism stakeholders to promote sustainable rural tourism making the indicators of the empowerment of stakeholders be lower than the average rate.

Therefore, the local government should change its attitude in the tourism development planning towards community-based approach through assigning tourism projects and activities to the private sector. Furthermore, the present study recommended the adoption of appropriate policies to strengthen social capital for empowering and participating tourism stakeholders in planning and implementing the sustainable rural development project.