This is the latest in a series of reports for Asia and the Pacific on the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Coming in the midst of the global financial and economic turmoil,it should offer a unique opportunity to redress the information balance – to register the impact on the poor and the implications for the achievement of the Goals. However, it is difficult to offer a fully up-to-date report since reality has been moving too fast for the MDG data to keep pace. Judgements about whether countries across the region are on or off track to meet the Goals must be based on longer-term trends. This report therefore supplements these trend data with a close analysis of the most recent information and uses this to signal how the crisis is playing out – who is likely to suffer and why.