Collecting Data on Migrants Through Service Provider NGOs: Towards Data Use and Advocacy.

Conducting methodologically defensible, logistically feasible and affordable large-scale national surveys of migrants is a serious challenge. This paper outlines the pros and cons of working with and through NGOs which provide services to migrants, in order to conduct a national longitudinal survey on migrant access to basic public services. This access method clearly does not result in a sample which is representative of a total national population of migrants, but the paper argues that there are also benefits of such a methodology. Apart from making larger and more longitudinal surveys logistically and financially possible in the first place, such benefits include the formation of active and collaborative networks among organizations in the migrant rights sector; capacity building within this sector around research and the use and meaning of empirical data; and the direct integration of empirical data into local and national advocacy work. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]