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¡ OS fjullcq, n. vol 20 no 2. Inst tute of Des elopntent Sitahes, Sussex these flows. Indicators of poverty are then easily taken as indicators of other dimensions of deprivation. including vulnerability. But vulnerability, more than poverty, is linked with net assets. Poverty, in the sense of low income, can he reduced by borrowing and; nvesting: hut such debt makes households more vulnerable. Poor people, in their horror of debt, appear more aware than professionals of the tradeoffs between poverty and vulnerability. Programmes and policies to reduce vulnerability-to make more secure-are not, one for one, the same as programmes and policies to reduce poverty-to raise incomes.

Care is also needed because vulnerability and security start as' our'concepts and are not necessarily'theirs'. To correct and modify them to fit local conditions requires decentralised analysis, encouraging, per-mitting, and acting on local concepts and priorities, as defined by poor people themselves. To date, such analysis indicates that for them, reducing vulnerability and enhancing security are recurrent concerns. Moreover, in recent years, while conditions have improved for some people, hundreds of'millions of others have become more vulnerable: through greater exposure to physical or political disaster or threat, through higher costs of meeting contingencies such as health expenditures, or through loss of assets through individual or widespread disasters which have used up their reserves, leaving them less to cope with future needs and crises.