The GAIN survey is designed for countries (NSOs or other responsible agencies) and national, regional, and international organizations working to enhance official statistics related to refugees, individuals in need of international protection, IDPs, or stateless persons. The purpose of this survey is to collect information on planned, ongoing, or completed statistical examples involving forcibly displaced and stateless populations. The survey also aims to raise awareness and support decision-making in EGRISS’s work. 

The questionnaire should be completed by the focal point or the most knowledgeable person in your organization regarding the related statistical example. You can include contact information for several colleagues if necessary, who were contributing to the provided information.

The time required to complete the questionnaire typically ranges from 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the number of examples you have to report. Most questions are designed for quick, concise responses, with only three open-ended questions requiring brief descriptive answers. 

You can see your progress using the orange progress bar at the top of the screen (see screenshot below).  

Yes, you have the option to save a draft of the questionnaire and continue at a later time. This can be useful if you need to verify or gather additional information from colleagues within your organization. However, we recommend completing the questionnaire in one go, if possible, as knowledgeable respondents within your institution are likely to have all the required information readily available.

Kobo can save your survey progress as a draft, allowing you to return and finish it later. When filling out the form, look for the ‘Save as Draft’ option located at the bottom of the page. The draft record is stored only within the current browser, which you can close without losing the stored record. Draft records can be accessed by reopening this page and clicking the button on the left of the screen that looks like this: 

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Draft records can also be loaded when re-opening the browser, which will prompt a pop-up allowing you to load a draft record. 

Warning: If you clear your browser cache, all draft and unsubmitted final records will be permanently deleted. 

We recommend filling in the survey online. However, if you would still like to fill in the form offline, you can do so by downloading an offline version of the GAIN survey forms (available towards the top of this page).

For any questions or clarifications or if you encounter any issues with the online form, please contact Mr. Filip Mitrovic ([email protected]).

Participating in the GAIN Survey allows EGRISS to gather comprehensive and accurate information, enabling better addressing the unique challenges faced by practitioners making efforts to include these populations in official statistics. Your input is instrumental in shaping policies and strategies in this regard.

The EGRISS Secretariat encourages you to report all examples (refer to glossary for example definition) and provide as much information for each example. This is the case for both country-led examples and institution-led examples, therefore, please also report examples that you are supporting as a partner institution. Please also report examples implementing novel/exploratory methodologies. 

You can include multiple examples in a single questionnaire. When completing the survey, you will be able to add additional examples (question PRO02), by clicking the ‘plus (+)’ button in this section of the form and provide relevant information for each example.

Yes, please include information about examples that are either in the design/planning, or implementation phases, or have been completed in 2025 in the survey (in the PRO section of questionnaire).

Please provide update information in this year’s survey. Examples reported in previous years will be pre-loaded in the 2025 survey (in the UPD section).

Yes, even if your organization does not have any examples to report for 2025, your input is still valuable and we encourage you to complete the survey. The GAIN Survey includes questions about planned future examples (FPR section) and the use of other EGRISS outputs or recommendations. Sharing information on upcoming initiatives or explaining why no examples are available provides essential context for EGRISS, helping to identify gaps and prioritize support where it’s needed most.

After filling in and submitting the survey, you received a thank you/acknowledgement email from IMS Automation ([email protected]>) The email contains a personalized link to your submission. To access your submission, click on the link, which will open a new website. The following screen will appear:

To log in, please use the following credentials:

Username: gain_survey

Password: gain_2025

After entering the credentials and clicking “Submit”, you will see your submission.

You can also download your submission by printing it as a PDF. To do so, use the “print” symbol in the top right corner, as indicated on the screenshot, where you can then select your print settings, as indicated on the second screenshot.

Click on “Prepare”, which will open the print menu, and then select “Print to PDF” to create a PDF and save it on your computer.

An Example (in PRO01 and PRO01A) in this survey is an organized initiative taking place in 2025 that includes or solely focuses on improving/producing national statistics on refugees, IDPs and/or stateless people. These examples encompass a wide range or they might involve working on a data source like implementation of a survey, administration of a database, work on a census, a data integration project between different data sources, or work on a non-traditional data source. Examples could also be tools like developing strategies, guidance documents, or the organization of training sessions and workshops. Examples can occur at different levels, whether on a national, regional, or global scale, and they may be at various stages of progress in 2025, including planning or implementation phases. Additionally, examples can entail collaboration with partners.

Example leads can be countries, institutions or CSOs (or other). Country-led examples include activities led by National Statistical Offices or another Government entity conducted in their national context, usually as part of the national statistical system. Examples led by international organizations without explicit country leadership are counted as institution-led examples, while examples led by civil society organizations or other entities are CSO-led examples.

A Partnership includes involvement of a national, international, or academic partner in the example implementation. Respondents could list multiple partners.  

The Future Examples (FPR) section enables respondents to provide details on anticipated examples that may start in 2026. Responses provided support forward-looking planning and help identify emerging trends, align efforts across stakeholders, and enhance collaboration between national, regional, and international actors to advance statistical inclusion efforts.

The difference between current and future examples:

• Current examples: Current examples are examples that are ongoing at the time of the GAIN survey, meaning that some time / capacity / staffing / financial investments have been made, for example, survey design / budgeting / training / enumeration / listing or other example-related activities have started. 

• Future examples: Future examples are examples for which no significant investments have yet been made in terms of design / budgeting / training / listing / enumeration etc.). 

Data sources and tools (PRO08) used to provide information on the example can be: (A) statistical surveys, (B) government records and databases, (C) general population censuses, (D) combining data from many places, (E) non-standard sources like humanitarian groups or social media data, (F) developing strategic documents, (G) following guidelines or toolkits, (H) giving training or workshops to get data, and any other source not listed where data comes from.

Challenges (in PRO19 and PRO20) in this survey refers to significant difficulties encountered during the example such as (A) trouble getting data from everyone, mistakes in data collection(C) difficulties in identifying specific groups like refugees or stateless people, (D) concerns about data confidentiality and privacy, as (E) resource constraints (like not having enough money or people), (G) issues related to politics or security, (H) delays or issues with data quality, (I) not having the right skills or tools for the project, (J) lacking clear instructions, or any other unique problems faced during the example.