External publications

Staying engaged as Team Europe in fragile settings

Desmidt, Sophie / Julian Bergmann / Benedikt Erforth / Sara Gianesello
External Publications (2024)

ETTG Collective Report (3/2024), Brüssel: European Think Tanks Group (ETTG)

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Recognising the changing nature and the increasing fragility of some contexts, the EU, many EU member states and European agencies of international cooperation have called for more strategic engagement in fragile contexts. However, European actors are far from reaching a shared European consensus on how (and if) to remain engaged in such contexts. For example, not all donors and European agencies see staying engaged in the Central Sahel as a given, and some European actors have decided to leave the region altogether for different reasons, such as high costs of continuous engagement, or shifted political priorities, or a perception that they could no longer have positive and long-lasting development impacts. Rather than solely questioning whether to stay engaged or not, our research suggests that emphasis should rather be placed on clarifying the rationale behind, and possible impact of, the decision to stay engaged. In particular, our research finds that ‘staying engaged’ is not a sustainable strategy in and of its own, if not accompanied by clear political guidance. The report makes several concrete suggestions to European actors on how to further strengthen a Team Europe approach for engagement in fragile settings.