Understanding the Effectiveness of Foreign Assistance to Prevent Food Insecurity in Palestine: A Temporal Analysis of Targeting Mechanisms and Treatment Effects (2018–2020)

Understanding the Effectiveness of Foreign Assistance to Prevent Food Insecurity in Palestine: A Temporal Analysis of Targeting Mechanisms and Treatment Effects (2018–2020) | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Understanding the Effectiveness of Foreign Assistance to Prevent Food Insecurity in Palestine: A Temporal Analysis of Targeting Mechanisms and Treatment Effects (2018–2020) Rabeh Morrar, Nathalie Ferrière This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8920370/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract This research examines the efficiency of foreign aid in alleviating food insecurity among Palestinian households, emphasizing heterogeneous outcomes of food security groups and heterogeneous population groups. This analysis estimates the effect of assistance on household food security transition and considers the targeting that humanitarian actors implement based on the results from the Food Security (SEFSec) survey (2018 and 2020), and through the propensity score matching. Evidently shown from the time comparison, there have been significant changes in both targeting and results over a timeframe defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, limiting occupation policies, and deteriorating economic conditions. Findings in 2018 show that assistance benefited food-secure and marginally insecure households but hindered moderate and severely food-insecure populations. By the year 2020, these adverse effects particularly worsened in Gaza, and the previous positive effects vanished. The results challenge traditional beliefs on aid efficacy and highlight the importance of context-sensitive and programmatic adaptive strategies. Humanities/Cultural and media studies Social science/Cultural and media studies Health sciences/Health care Humanities/Health humanities Humanities/Medical humanities Social science/Politics and international relations Social science/Social policy Food security foreign assistance Palestine propensity score matching humanitarian aid conflict-Economics Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8920370","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":608076731,"identity":"3b3f7768-c290-4069-a45a-467241bb9926","order_by":0,"name":"Rabeh Morrar","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA70lEQVRIiWNgGAWjYFACHgZmOPsDA5AjARYkUgvjDJK1MINVEtJi3n724OMChm1y5rMPP/tsu8OOnX92A+ODt224tcicyUs2nsFw21jmXJrx7NwzycwSdw4wG87Fo0WCIcdMmofhduIMHgZj5tw2ZmaGGwls0rz4tPC/Mf8N0cL+mdmyrZ5Z/kYC+2+8WiRyzJghWniMmRnbDjMbAG1hxq/lXbI0j8FtYwkenmLG3rbjzIY3Epsl55zD57Dcg595Km7LSfCwb2b42VadLHcj+eCHN2W4tUCAAYKZDIzRBkLqUYEdacpHwSgYBaNgJAAAZ9NES8quR8gAAAAASUVORK5CYII=","orcid":"","institution":"An-Najah National University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Rabeh","middleName":"","lastName":"Morrar","suffix":""},{"id":608076733,"identity":"c7fe6bb3-148c-4fea-917c-542a237ba391","order_by":1,"name":"Nathalie Ferrière","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Aix-Marseille University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Nathalie","middleName":"","lastName":"Ferrière","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2026-02-19 19:23:40","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8920370/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8920370/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":109111698,"identity":"8ef26f47-4295-4a86-934e-7fca8470f07c","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-05-12 15:43:58","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":798155,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscriptforanonymous.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8920370/v1_covered_fdaf1c8f-632d-46db-9410-c0fbcd7a5951.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Understanding the Effectiveness of Foreign Assistance to Prevent Food Insecurity in Palestine: A Temporal Analysis of Targeting Mechanisms and Treatment Effects (2018–2020)","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Food security, foreign assistance, Palestine, propensity score matching, humanitarian aid, conflict-Economics","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8920370/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8920370/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eThis research examines the efficiency of foreign aid in alleviating food insecurity among Palestinian households, emphasizing heterogeneous outcomes of food security groups and heterogeneous population groups. 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