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Have the development programs reduced poverty in Iran effectively? This paper has addressed this question. Because of its unique property, i. e. the independency from poverty line, we have used the stochastic dominance approach to compare the level of poverty through three economic and social development programs in both rural and urban areas. The results show that there has been no strategic anti - poverty planning in Iran. Testing the statistical significance of alleviating poverty over time implies that the poverty indices over the implementation of Development Programs do not exhibit a declining trend.