How Can NIE Inform Sustainable Livelihoods Analysis and Actions? 2.1.1 NIE and Policies, Institutions and Processes

An important insight arising from NIE is the relationship between the institutional environment, institutional arrangements, and peoples’ activities. NIE provides an analytical framework for examining the importance and effects of policies, institutions, and processes that make up the formal and informal institutional environment, from international and national institutions to those, such as gender relations, operating within communities and households. This gives insights into the pressures for, constraints on and possible effects of institutional change (on resource access, utilisation and productivity; on opportunities for and constraints on trade based activities; and on livelihood outcomes for different people).

More specifically, NIE provides a framework

• for examining the institutional interactions between assets, activities, and outcomes;
• for analysing the effects of power and the processes of (and incentives for) institutional and livelihood change; and
• for understanding the reasons for and effects of different institutional arrangements