Description
The ‘integrated approach’ (IA) dominates Western and multilateral peacebuilding programmes in foreign conflicts. With roots in the 2000s as a response to the perceived failures of fragmented interventions, its prominence was crystallised though the creation of UN integrated missions. The EU is particularly invested in the IA, and has used its presence in the Sahel as a ‘laboratory’ for IA implementation. Yet the EU’s commitment to ‘integration’ persists despite a lack of evidence that the approach has made its peacebuilding more effective. The conflict in the Sahel has escalated dramatically and spread across the region since 2017, despite funding increases for integrated assistance programmes. Using document analysis and interviews in Brussels and Mali, this paper asks what explains the EU’s sustained commitment to integration, and why staff continuously affirm the utility of the IA in the Sahel. This paper argues that the EU’s commitment to the IA is not explained by its potential to deliver improved peacebuilding outcomes, but by the need to affirm and perform the EU’s coherence and status as a crisis manager. This paper moves beyond the current literature’s tendency to focus on obstacles to integration, examining instead how the IA can conceal other motives for peacebuilding.
