This study aimed mainly at prioritizing rural
municipalities (RMs) of the central district of Jiroft county in Kerman province
of Iran according to the standards of sustainable rural development. First, the most important criteria were
identified in a desk document method. Then, using the Delphi technique and the
views of experts and subject specialists and village councils (25 individuals) in
three stages, the most important criteria were primarily classified into five main
issues and finally into the 42 sub-criteria. The alternatives to this research included
the RMs of five villages of the concerned central district. Finally, fifteen experts
in rural affairs were asked through focus group interviews with counsel to
compare the pairwise test criteria and alternatives based on the criteria.
Results revealed that among the criteria for measuring sustainable development,
the greatest relative weight was of the construction and infrastructure critera
with the value of 0.330 and the lowest relative weight was assigned to the
criteria associated with communication with organizations and institutions with
the value of 0.087. A number of the assigned sub-criteria to the sustainable
development included improving the health services, encouraging the rural
people to develop handicrafts and efforts to promote the development and
marketing of rural products, making efforts to enhance social capital of the
village, avoiding the pollution of water and soil in the village, and cooperating
with the council and prefect for review and issuance of business licenses which
were ranked first in each concerned criterion to determine the performance of
the RMs.   
 

 
  





 [1]. Corresponding Author and PH.D
Student in Agriculture Development, Yasouj University, Yasouj, Iran
(saleh.sh0028@yahoo.com).   [2]. Professor, Department of
Economics and Agricultural Development, University of Tehran,
Iran.    [3]. Assistant Professor of
Agricultural Economics and Faculty Member of Agriculture and Natural Resources Research
Center, Yasouj, Iran.