Analyzing the Implementation Obstacles of Rural Guide Plans in Rural Areas of Tabriz County in Iran

In the last few decades, due to the importance of rural development in national development process, Iran's villages have experienced relatively significant changes in the life of their residents and theirs as well; thus, there were introduced different approaches to achieve the rural development goals, one of the most important of which was the implementation of Rural Guide [Hadi] Plan. Despite initial objectives and programs for rural development projects in different parts of the country, according to the evidence, the preparation and implementation of the plan faced several problems in various aspects, in effect. This study aimed at investigating and analyzing the implementation obstacles of the Rural Guide [Hadi] Plans in rural areas of Tabriz County in Iran. The statistical society included all the heads of rural households residing in the villages with more than 300 households where the concerned plans had been completed by the end of 2011. Among the statistical society, 362 household heads were selected as sample by using Cochran's formula. A stratified random sampling method was used to obtain the sample and questionnaire. After validating the questionnaire, a pre-exam was conducted to establish its reliability, and the Cronbach's alpha was 0.71. To identify indicators of factors related to “the problems of Guide [Hadi] Plan in rural areas of Tabriz County”, an exploratory factor analysis was used. The study results showed that five factors of managerial-planning, physical, environmental, knowledge-information, and technical explained about 73.71 percent of the total variance. Prioritizing the problems of the plan also showed that lack of rural people's participation in the project management process, the mismatch between the needs and the main issues of the rural people, and unfamiliarity of project managers, contractors and consultants with rural areas were placed at the first to third ranks, respectively.