Strategic Policy Frameworks as Peacebuilding Tools: A Comparative Study

This article provides a brief introduction to selected policy and cooperation frameworks that were adopted by the international community to bring a more strategic and coherent approach to peacebuilding in the last decade. It begins by highlighting some core general characteristics of the various tools (e.g. integrated peacebuilding strategies, compacts, country assistance frameworks and standards implementation plans) in terms of their institutional origins, objectives, scope and thematic focus. The article then describes how these instruments differ in terms of policy emphasis and how they are applied in practice. Based on the shared yet sometimes divergent goals, design elements and practice with these different strategic policy frameworks, some general lessons are extracted about their varied utility in terms of contributing to the advancement of strategic approaches to peacebuilding.