Welcome to another edition of the SMERU Newsletter. In earlier editions we have focussed our attention on the impact of the crisis on the poorer sections of the community. Yet the financial crisis began with the collapse of the banking and corporate sector in urban centers and so it is also appropriate to consider the effects of those events on "white-collar" workers. We feature here a summary report and some case studies drawn from a SMERU investigation into how tertiary graduates in three cities have fared after losing their jobs in the formal sector. Elsewhere we describe our plans to investigate the decentralization process that is soon to begin throughout the regions, and we report on a further study on the appropriateness of the targeting of two key Social Safety Net programs. Finally, we offer a few reflections based on the experiences we have gained over the last six months as we tried to assist a number of NGOs to prepare suitable funding proposals to an international agency prepared to support "on-the-ground" monitoring of the SSN Program. Please remember that copies of all our full reports are available on request or by visiting SMERU’s website