While all three WDR 2000/01 themes - opportunity, empowerment and security - are deemed to be of equal importance, security is probably the most strategic instrument for targeted poverty reduction. This paper critically discusses the two innovative frameworks introduced in the report: the twofold typology of risk and vulnerability, and the risk management framework. In so doing it highlights the lack of new instruments to strengthen informal risk reduction, that require participatory approaches, and locally defined tools, to ensure that the voices of the poor move beyond complaints to commitments.