Participation for sustainable rural development in Iran

Rural development is the process of improving the quality of life and economic well-being of people living in relatively isolated and sparsely populated areas. Rural development actions are mainly and mostly to development aim for the social and economic improvement of the rural areas and aims at finding the ways to improve the rural lives with participation of the rural people themselves so as to meet the required need of the rural area and is also characterized by its emphasis on locally produced economic development strategies. It can therefore be argued that the ultimate goal of participation is empowerment. Participation then is about power relations. Nowadays sustainable rural development is a pillar and focal point in most discussions for betterment of conditions especially in developing countries such as Iran. "Sustainable development" (SD) is a new concept with various perspectives in communities. Cities and rural areas are in the core of attention for developing. As a developing country, Iran has 65000 villages with about 22 million people living in rural areas. They are living under poverty line and their survive depend on agriculture, whether directly or indirectly.