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Given the importance of women's participation and taking advantage of their ability, it is essential that a systematic and strategic plan should be organized in this area. Undoubtedly, planning for the development of the specific associations of rural women can be an effective step to increase their participation in various scenes, and it can also help improve the status and rights of women. The main objective of this study was to explore factors affecting the development and strengthening of rural women’s enterprises. A mixed method was used in this study. Data gathering tools were both semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. Target samples were both 25 rural development experts and 92 rural women in the Hamadan County. The results showed that the following items are essential for the development and strengthening rural women’s enterprises: applying legal and financial support; family support; management support, and education and cultural support. In addition, the following strategies are required: culture building; women's empowerment programs, continued implementation of consulting and training programs, and encouraging the introduction of the women's enterprises. The results of factor analysis showed that economic, sociocultural, and education and extension factors can determine approximately 60 percent of factors affecting the development and strengthening of rural women’s enterprises.

The countries' economy is basically dependent on both human and the natural resources so that social development of each country depends on them directly or indirectly. Nonetheless, some problems including the rapid growth of the population, unsustainable and unplanned exploitation, and lack of public awareness of development and reclamation rules have given an increase to the degradation process of these resources. So, one of the basic requirements to achieve the sustainable agriculture and rural development is sustainability in natural resource management and its protection. It should also be noted that public participation in natural resource management plays an important role in the prevention of this destructive process. The problem propels the aim of this research to determine the measure of agriculture beneficiaries’ role and importance in sustainable management. This research is an analytical - descriptive study which has a survey approach in collecting data. The statistical population consisted of 208 agriculture beneficiaries in villages around Hamadan city. Results showed that farmers could be classified into three groups: 34 percent in unsustainable group, 54 percent in moderately sustainable group and 12 percent in sustainable group. Also, multivariate regression showed that the variables of personal, extension and education, economics, policy and institutional and social activities could explain 79 percent (R 2 = 0.791) of natural resources’ changes in agricultural sustainable management.

The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of entrepreneurial characteristics of members of technical and engineering companies and agricultural advisory services on their willingness toward entrepreneurial activities. Entrepreneurship development plays an important role in job creation process which can eventually lead to the achievement of sustainable development goals in agriculture. In Iran, a kind of rural advisory services named technical engineering companies and agricultural advisory services are legally accountable for agricultural extension and rural development issues. A survey methodology was utilized to collect data by using a questionnaire interview. The Target population of the study were all agricultural advisory personnel (N=50) currently working in Hamedan and Malayer townships. Results showed that there was no significant relationship between age, gender, educational level, and work experience of participants with their entrepreneurial tendency. However, self-confidence, work courage, teamwork spirit, motivation and creativity, competitiveness, self-help, law abiding character, risk-taking and job interest significantly affected the entrepreneurial tendency of participants.

This study was a qualitative research which was done by a case study approach. The samples were chosen from rural development experts of Hamedan Province during a snowball sampling process. The data were collected by the semistructured interviews. The data collection was done by faceto- face interviews, after the interview questions guide was determined. The theoretical saturation was attained by interviewing 25 respondents and at this point the interview process was laid off. The qualitative analysis of interviews was done by a content analysis method. The results showed that in order to develop and promote the rural women enterprises not only financial, domestic, managerial, educational and cultural supports are needed but some approaches like culturalization and educational programs are vital too.