Book excerpt: On 28-30 September 2009, the Asian Development Bank, the governments of the People's Republic of China and Viet Nam, and the ASEAN Secretariat jointly organized a high-level Asia-wide conference in Ha Noi on the social and environmental impact of the global economic crisis on Asia and the Pacific, especially on the poor and vulnerable. The conference also served as the 3rd China-ASEAN Forum on Social Development and Poverty Reduction and as the 4th ASEAN+3 High-Level Seminar on Poverty Reduction. It was supported by various development partners. This book features selected papers from the Ha Noi conference. It is designed with the needs of policy makers in mind, utilizing field, country, and thematic background studies to cover a large number of countries and cases.