Economy

Poverty as a socio-economic issue has unsuitable out ones in rural societies. It is said to be an abstract in the way to rural sustainable development. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effects of social capital on rural poverty reduction in rural areas of Ghobchagh village in Miyandoab County. The method of this research is analytical-description. Data collection has performed through documentation and field survey. In doing data analysis, descriptive situational measures (mean, variance, standard deviation) inferential statistics (Spearman correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis and path analysis) has been used. Study area is Ghobchagh village in Miyandoab County with 163 sample of household in Cochran’s modified formula. Results shows, a meaning full relationship between rise of social capital elements and reduction of economic poverty of villages. In such a way that all the elements of social capital (trust, participation, unity and social communication) has negative effect on economic poverty reduction of villages. In this between, social unity’s elements value of with 0.598 has the highest effect and trust element (factor) with a value of 0.197 has the lowest effect on reduction in economic poverty in the study area.

According to general census in 2011, rural population of the country has been over 21 million and 603 thousand people. Considering the per capita monthly subsidy equivalent to 455,000 riyals, it can be resulted that in the first three years of the project, over 353 trillion has been allocated to rural community. Calculations show that this amount is equivalent to 2.4% of the total budget intended for this period of time. It was the first time that this amount of cash was being directly distributed among villagers by its cost and expenditure management being transferred to the families themselves. It seems that this method of paying subsidies has greatly influenced on economic and social status of rural communities.

Considering economic and cultural structure of rural societies together with attempts to remedy the lack of liquidity, a large amount of subsidies granted is spending for household livelihood expenses such as food, non-food and service expenses. Therefore, in this article we are intended to investigate the impacts of targeted subsidies on the current status of livelihood expenses of rural households in different social strata as well as making a comparison of targeted subsidies in two geographical areas (Kalat and Binalud). Generally, in this research we are trying to find answers to the questions that: 1) how is the position of natural resources, economic capital and people s income in rural areas of Kalat and Binalud (Torghabeh Shandiz)? 2) How did targeted subsidies affect to change patterns of livelihood expenses in different classes of rural areas in the County of Kalat and Binalud? And is there any significant difference between the two areas or not?

This research is an applied one which has been provided using the quantitative approach of descriptive-analytical. This is an exploratory research, as well. Basically, it has been done using the principals of survey researches which has investigated the effects of targeted subsidies (independent variable) on livelihood expenses of rural households (dependent variable) applying post event processing. This research has done in the two cities of Kalat and Binalud located in Khorasan Razavi. There are two reasons for choosing these cities. First, these are greatly influenced by their position i.e., they are located near the metropolitan County of Mashhad. Then, due to the border location of the two cities, not many researchers have concentrated on the matter of development in these areas, yet. So, due to the importance of environmental contrasts in geography, data analysis has been conducted using comparative approach that helped us study different aspects of the matter to determine and classify the role of different geographical foundations (including natural conditions, the distribution of basic economic resources, income, and social conditions) in class differences among rural groups. We have eventually compared the impact of paying subsidies on the increase of income and consequently on changing spending patterns of livelihood expenses by the residents of the two areas. Questionnaires providing in two types of qualitative and quantitative are being considered as the main tools of the study. Quantitative questions are mostly intended to answer the first question of the research which includes some issues of households' social features (population, age, gender, education) and economic resources (occupation, expenses and income, land, livestock, housing, and machinery resources). Qualitative questions aim at the investigation of changes in spending patterns by rural households to answer the second question arose in the research. This type of questions consist of 8 main components (food and non-food items, educational, medical, and healthcare expenses, communication services, tourism, Energy, agricultural institutions) of more than 54 reagents.

Discussion and conclusion
Emphasizing sustainable livelihoods approach, this research aims at analyzing consequences of targeted subsidies plan on the changes in spending patterns in different social strata of rural communities. Then, comparing the results in the two areas of Kalat and Binalud we will be able to examine the impact of geographical factors. As contrasting foundations of every natural area can be considered to be the basis of economic and social differences of different societies that may be changed later by the government policies. According to the survey, particular environmental situations and capacities of rural settlements in each of these areas has made different economic functions at regional level related to local communications and its connection with the metropolitan County of Mashhad. These factors are so much effective that each single one can cause long-time consolidation of special economic, social and cultural mechanisms in rural areas and geographical environments. There is no doubt that these factors firstly influence the economic business of the studied area. In Binalud, there are approximately 10 % of rich families by an average monthly income of higher than 20 million riyals which are owning of almost about 21% of economic resources. In return, the rest 70% of low-income families (less than 10 million riyals) are providing with 52% of economic resources. This situation indicates bigger class differences in this area.
The above mentioned indicators are not so much far from each other in Kalat. Additionally, different interactions and communications between urban and rural areas and their impacts on the households' livelihoods caused changes in spending patterns of rural households. Because,b 65% of Kalat villagers mentioned that, compared to the past, after receiving cash subsidies no change occurred in their spending. As an overall conclusion, the new method of targeted subsidies has relatively influenced the increase of income in lower social classes (about 15 to 25%) and somewhat moderated class differences. This factor has greatly affected spending patterns and made it improved, while it can be said that, due to the free price of subsidized goods, it didn’t lead to the sustainable livelihood of households.

After land reform, some actions have been done for rural finance by creating financial institutions such as credit cooperatives, Agriculture Bank and interest-free loan funds which were not successful in improving poor people livelihood. The studied area in this study includes a forest-mountain area that have small and sporadic villages and they are far from rural-urban continuum. In fact, these areas face with basic shortcomings because of their location in geographical isolation, lack of development of market, scattered villages, low population density and unavailability of services (including financial services). Researchers' preliminary studies in this area showed that in financial markets of the forest-mountain villages in Bandpey part of Babol county, for rural finance to meet their needs in micro level, include just officialpublic institutions and semipublic ones (agriculture Bank, credit cooperatives and Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation) that were not operating as rural financial institutions, so in the studied area this question is raised that in spite of the availability of financial institutions, why the level of financing services is low for villagers? Or in other words, why the available financial institutions could not be successful in attracting villagers? Therefore, the question is that what are the characteristics of financial institution for being successful in presenting financial services? This study aims to recognize optimality criteria in institutions that offer financial services in rural districts and tries to present a framework in rural financial institutionalization to help rural managers and development planners in rural financial domain such as Agriculture Bank, rural financial cooperatives, Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation and rural interest-free loan funds.

Ito consider the subject, a qualitative approach has been chosen in this study. So, 25 villagers that are residents of forest-mountain villages of eastern Bandpey in the county have been selected in a purposeful way; data collection has been done through in-depth semi-structured interviews to the theoretical saturation point. Following that, for more clarification and conducting in-depth interview, some follow-up and exploratory questions have been used. After each interview, all the statements were written on the paper. The obtained data from interviews were analyzed by using qualitative content analysis method (by the framework of an inductive approach). To increase the creditability and acceptability of data, these methods have been used: simultaneous data analysis, continuous observation, review by supervisors and selecting the main informants; accuracy and authenticity of data (stability) have been considered too, regarding these indicators: maximum number of participants, desirable relation with participants, accuracy in recording data, using external researchers and supervisors, long time engagement with research and obtained data.

Discussion and Conclusion
On the major subject that is extracted is "flexibility". On the major subject that is extracted is "flexibility". Flexibility of rural financial institution means the flexibility in time duration for loan repayment that does not interfere with planting season and the time that farmers and ranchers should spend money for their works. The results show that when the time of loan repayment interfere with the time that small farmers do not have cash money, this leads to excluding some people from taking credits and more than that those who were able to take the credit, could not gain enough profit. Availability is a criterion in rural space that have low level of livelihood, in faraway geographical location is of great importance. In one hand, availability means physical availability. This criterion can be understandable when rural forest-mountain area is understandable. These areas face with problems because of dispersion of villages and their distance from urban area to receive services including financial services. In another way, lack of finance leads to irresponsibility. Considering the findings showed that if rural financial institutions were dependent to government subsidies, offering credits to meet villagers' needs would be uncertain all the time. Another criterion, a sub-dimension of availability, is "having responsibility regarding to the conditions that farmers face with a social-economic problem". In one hand, small farmers and ranchers' livelihood is always exposed to natural, social and economic crisis (especially in forest-mountain regions), and in another hand, their week financial support make villagers vulnerable to these kind of dangers. The obtained results showed that optimality of a rural financial institution is related to offering services in all dimensions of financial services especially loan, saving and insurance. Therefore, one the most important issues for optimality of the rural financial institutions is the capacity of saving for small farmers and ranchers; they have high desire for saving. Official financial institutions and semi-official ones could not support this dimension of villagers' need with a commercial approach. According to the findings, villagers do not consider financial institutions as merely a monetary institution; they expect an appropriate financial institution not only offer monetary services, but also they expect them offer social services that need investment, or assignment of subsidies on their necessary products for their agriculture. The study findings showed that the assigned small loan is a loan for agriculture not for the farmer, and it rarely considers the need of the villagers for consumption. It is suggested that researchers on institutional issues and service institution in rural districts consider these issues in the time of occurrence and with direct observations and interviews; they should familiarize with their challenges and by a topdown and bottom-up approach, they can present a suitable strategy for the same areas to overcome their problems.

According to the new definitions of regionalism, poverty reduction depends on the activation and promotion of local human and natural capacities in order to improve sustainable livelihoods and reduce rural and urban poverty. One of the deprived and poor places of the country is Kuhdasht County in Lorestan Province. according to the latest census of the Statistics Center, the population of Kuhdasht County is 166,658, 64,373 of which live in rural areas and 102,285 in urban areas. Considering unemployment as one of the indicators of poverty, its rate in Kuhdasht County in 2016 was 16 percent, which is higher than the national average. This unemployment rate is visible in urban and rural areas of the county.  Also, the net migration rate of this county is more than 600 people. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the factors affecting poverty reduction with emphasis on new indicators of regionalism in Kuhdasht. This study seeks to identify and analyze the impact of factors affecting poverty reduction in Kuhdasht County, for which statistical and structural analysis is used.