This brief offers insight into the ways poor households manage risks. Based on the financial diaries research outlined in Portfolios of the Poor: How the World’s Poor Live on $2 a Day, this brief outlines the formal and informal risk management tools used by poor households in Bangladesh, India and South Africa, such as insurance and savings, and examines how these tools can be improved to help the poor mitigate risk and plan for the future.

Translated versions of this research brief can be accessed in Spanish and French.