TEHRAN – A budget of 19 trillion rials (some $450 million at the official exchange rate) has been allocated to rural development projects across the country, IRNA quoted Ali Nikzad, head of the Housing Foundation, as saying on Monday.

The funding will be spent on building roads, schools, mosques, and expanding infrastructures, he added.

There are currently around 40,000 villages nationwide, each with over 20 families, he noted, highlighting that the reverse trend of migration from cities to villages is a source of happiness.

He went on to say that in the Iranian calendar year 1384 (March 2005-March 2006), just seven percent of rural houses were renovated and strengthened, while the figure has increased to around 50 percent and the rest will be completed by the next ten years.

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.

MG