I got it to work by changing 2 things
export CPPFLAGS="-Os"And by removing the prefix in the configure, and installing it twice ( one in the sysroot of the toolchain ) and the other in the filesystem for the target
sh $ICU_SOURCE_DIR/source/configure --host=arm-cortex_a8-linux-gnueabi -with-cross-build=$ICU_HOST_DIR --prefix="" if ! make -j5 DESTDIR=$SYSROOT install; then echo -e "${RED}Error making ICU Target ( sysroot )!${NC}" exit 1 fi if ! make -j5 DESTDIR=$PREFIX install; then echo -e "${RED}Error Installing ICU Target ( filesystem )!${NC}" exit 1 fi