Official enviroment and climate aid has increased in recent decades (Brodén Gyberg & Fridahl 2025). This type of aid aims to address climate change, strengthen resilience, reduce vulnerabilities, and combat poverty. However, challenges such as donor fragmentation, lack of coordination, misalignment of objectives, and insufficient localization hinder its effectiveness (Janus et al 2015, Reckien et al 2023, Schipper et al 2020). In some cases, ODA can lead to maladaptation, exacerbating vulnerabilities rather than alleviating them. Although challenges exist, the use of integrated approaches can contribute to policy coherence, sustainability and effectivness, limiting adverse unintended consequences (Persson 2009, England et al 2018). Swedish aid authorities have integrated environment and climate, conflict, and gender into its aid operations for decades, an ambition that was sharpened in 2015. We present work in progress based on an analysis of Swedish climate adaptation aid in Eastern Africa, exploring the preconditions for governing complexity and fostering transfomative adaptation through the use of integrated approaches. We analyze how the ambitions for integrating cross-cutting issues are framed and legitimized in central policy documents and how aid practitioners navigate the opportunities and challenges with these ambitions.