TEHRAN – The Ministry of Interior and the Housing Foundation of the Islamic Revolution signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to enhance rural development, IRNA reported on Sunday.Under the MOU, creating a positive and constructive interaction between the Municipalities and village administrators and the Housing Foundation in the field of rural development is considered, Mehdi Jamali Nejad, deputy minister of interior for urban and rural development, said.Reviewing and implementing rural development plans with priority on less developed cities are among the fields of cooperation, he added.He mentioned the improvement of the quality of rural constructions and the promotion of indigenous and Islamic-Iranian architecture as other areas of cooperation in this memorandum.Rural development, migration reverseCurrently, 26 percent of the country's population lives in villages, around 39,000 villages have more than 20 households and 23,000 villages have less than 20 households.Many efforts have been made over the past couple of years to support villagers and slow down the trend of migration.Thus, more than 97 percent of the country's rural population lives in villages with over 20,000 households.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 government’s 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.Since 2003, some 37,919 village administration offices have been established nationwide, offering services to about 95 percent of the country's rural population.FB/MG