Performance Assessment of Rural Municipalities (Dehyari) using Common Assessment Framework (CAF) (Case study: Dehloran County)

Authors

Abstract

Extended Abstract

Introduction
Today, every organization needs to assess its activities for more efficient and effective performance. In Iranian rural areas, there are organizations that provide services and facilities to the local people and they are responsible for doing it. Dehyary or rural municipality is an organization that has been expanded rapidly in recent years in rural areas. Dehyary has an important role in the rural management and development, which performance assessment can increase the success of this institution. In other words, the performance assessment can reduce many of costs as well as prepare the environmental conditions to better efficiency any Rural Municipality through recognizing strengths and weaknesses.The Performance measurement is the process of collecting, analyzing and/or reporting information regarding the performance of an individual, group, organization, system or component. It can involve studying processes/ strategies within organizations, or studying executive processes/parameters/phenomena, to see whether output are in line with what was intended or should have been achieved .In addition, organizational performance assessment is a practice-based framework that builds on the synergy between planning and assessment, and results in the discernment of impact and value. It promotes a set of practices that enable the organization to effectively integrate planning, strategy, performance, assessment, and organizational development in order to advance the institution’s mission. The objective of this paper is performance assessment of Rural Municipalities (dehyari) in Dehloran County that was established more than 4 years ago some indicators such as efficiency, affectivity, and empowerment were employed due to responding ability in framework of scientific management principles and concepts to act in framework of organizational goals and executive tasks and plans.
In this matter there are a few questions including:
What is the level of performance in Rural Municipalities in the study areas?
Is there significance different in performance of Rural Municipalities from the point of view of people?
And finally is there significance different between view of people and Islamic Council members about performance assessment of Rural Municipalities (Dehyari)?

Methodology
The principle model used in this paper is the Common Assessment Framework (CAF). The research method is descriptive and analytic and questionnaire is used to collect data. Also we used the statistical methods to analyze the data. To measure of performance we used 11 indicators including strategic management, administrative- personal matters, social and administrative relations, administrative health, establish of conservational infrastructure, improve of rural environment, sewage disposal, and improve of transportation, sport, cultural and tourism facilities.
The statistical populations are three groups including local people, rural managers and Rural Islamic Councils. The sampling method was random sampling and therefore we selected 27 council members, 9 rural managers and 238 local people as sample size. There are many closed questions in researcher-made questionnaire using the 5-level Likert spectrum that satisfactory rate is measured from very low (1) to very high (5).

Results and Discussion
The results indicate the performance of Rural Municipalities in study area using Common Assessment Framework (CAF) has been low according to the used indicators. Also according to calculated mean, the performance of Rural Municipalities from point of view of people, rural managers and rural council members is calculated 2/61 and therefore is undesirable. Some factors including low education of rural managers, unawareness of them due to the performance assessment principles, lack of approved plan in Rural Municipalities, lack of people participation in development projects and finally financial problems are the most important factors influencing on of performance level in Rural Municipalities.

Conclusion
According to results, there is a different on performance of Rural Municipalities in every village from point of view of people. In other words, in some village there is a partly desirable opinion about performance of Rural Municipalities. In addition, there is a positive relationship between people and rural council members’ opinion on performance of Rural Municipalities. Since most of rural managers don’t have the sufficient education, therefore existence of rural managers with high education can be useful for improving performance in Rural Municipalities.
In fact, lack of sufficient recognition on place and legal obligations of Rural Municipalities is very important to improve of the performance. Therefore this matter can be affected to decline participation and collaboration to Rural Municipalities. Furthermore, the active participation between people and rural managers, and use of people opinion and views is very important to rural planning and management.

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