TEHRAN – A total of 4,959 development and service projects have come on stream in rural areas nationwide by the Municipalities and Village Administration Organization.

The projects were inaugurated on the occasion of the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution which is celebrated annually on February 1-11, IRNA quoted Ali Qorbani, an official with the Organization, as saying.

Most of the projects are related to the improvement of rural roads, equivalent to 74 percent of the total projects, and the construction of parks and green spaces, safety and firefighting, sports and cultural places are also the other projects, he explained.

Some 26 percent of the country's population lives in villages.A total of 16 trillion rials (nearly $61 million) has been spent on the implementation of the projects, he noted.

Since 2003, some 37,919 village administration offices have been established nationwide, offering services to about 95 percent of the country's rural population, he concluded.

Rural development

Currently, 26 percent of the country's population lives in villages, around 39,000 villages have more than 20 households and 23,000 villages have less than 20 households.

Thus, more than 97 percent of the country's rural population lives in villages with over 20,000 households.

In Iran, where villages account for generating 20-23 percent of the value-added in the country, the development of rural areas has been always a top agenda of the governments’ activities.

Many efforts have been made over the past couple of years by the government to support villagers and slow down the trend of migration from rural areas to cities.

Rural tourism, agritourism, religious tourism, and ecotourism are alternatives or complementary economic activities that could further stimulate rural development while decreasing rural community dependency on one main economic sector (agriculture, forestry, energy, or mining).

Mohammad Omid, the vice president for rural development, said in November 2020 that for the first time in the country, the migration of people from rural areas to cities has reached zero.

FB/MG