Evaluating humanitarian assistance for food security and resilience during the lean season in the Sahel pre-analysis plan

This pre-analysis plan details the evaluation of a lean-season humanitarian assistance program implemented from July-September 2025 in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria. The intervention addresses acute food insecurity during the lean season, a period when food stocks are depleted and food prices peak. Interventions combine food or cash/vouchers assistance with nutrition support, WASH activities, and genderbased protection measures, adapted to the local contexts in each country. Despite the annual occurrence of lean season, important questions remain. What is the impact of the lean season on household welfare, including the dietary intake and food security of women and children under five? Can seasonal transfers mitigate the impacts of seasonal deprivation? This evaluation applies a mixed-methods multi-country design. In the main analysis, we will use a difference-in-differences strategy that exploits both temporal variation and treatment status across households, drawing on approximately 3,000 households surveyed at baseline and endline. Primary outcomes include household food security and food consumption, child dietary intake, and use of harmful coping strategies. Secondary outcomes include women’s empowerment, resilience to shocks, and community disputes / cohesion. The study also incorporates process evaluation of implementation fidelity and contextual adaptations. This study contributes to the literature on seasonality and food security in the Sahel and can inform policy on linking crisis response with resilience-building in fragile countries.