Identification of Strategies for Increasing Partnership of Rural Community in the "Selseleh Regional Development Plan" as a Local Model

Abstract

"Selseleh Regional Development Plan" is an endogenous approach with the aim of empowering villagers of Selseleh County (Aleshtar) located in the north of Lorestan province. It was conducted between 1973 and 1978. The present study was conducted with the aim of identification of strategies for increasing partnership of Rural community in the "Selseleh Regional Development Plan". This is a qualitative and exploratory-descriptive Research. The research method is inductive qualitative content analysis. Purposive sampling was used and initial coding was done inductively based on the contents of the documents of the "Selseleh Regional Development Plan". Finally, the categories were extracted. 47 concepts were extracted from the primary and secondary codes of the documents. They were grouped into three main categories: institutions, groups, and individuals. In the next step, based on axial coding, three constructs were identified as the context and mechanism of participation: institutional and social constructs and attitudes. Based on the findings, "Selseleh Regional Development Plan" has increased the participation of the villagers in two ways: (a) increased participation context; (b) increased level of participation. The result is increased engagement through providing local staff, creating a mechanism of participation, research and innovation, budgeting, and training. Increased participation has also been achieved through the provision of infrastructure services and addressing the communication, water supply, cooperative, and public affairs of Aleshtar.

Keywords

• selseleh regional development plan
• participatory planning and management
• rural development
• aleshtar
• content analysis