28 SOCIAL SCIENTIST gave a call to the "enlightened of the world" to work for global solidarity and the mutual interests of the two "blocks" of the world, not capitalist or socialist but North and South. While the developed North was shown both the stick of a plausible "break-down of the world order" and the carrot of expanded markets in the third world; the South was promised "appropriate" aid and support for "higher growth and greater productivity". Neither of these documents made any mention of conflicts of interests between the two blocks nor the structural constraints that are at the root of the global inequity that they addressed. Thus the interests of the powerful continued to guide the directions of development of the rest of the globe. The prescriptions adopted by the World Bank/ Brandt Commission were part of a larger debate which also entered the arena of health. The failure of malaria eradication programmes and the lukewarm response to family planning programmes in some countries had raised serious doubts about the nature of these health interventions. It was realised that a basic and comprehensive service with effective coverage was more important than a sophisticated but less accessible alternative.3 Indeed the WHO perceived a major crisis on the point of developing in both halves of the world. This was attributed both to the fact that health services ignored the social causes of morbidity and mortality and the limits, therefore, of technical intervention. An ad hoc group of the Executive Board of WHO on Promotion of National Health Services, warned that the resolution of the health crisis lay not only in the nature of the health care delivery system but also in addressing the wider existing social, economic and political structures which "must be faced at once if destructive and costly reactions are to be averted".4 This shift in focus provided the context for the Alma Ata Declaration of 1978. The declaration outlined a "Health for All" strategy, in which Primary Health Care (PHC) was not seen as elimination of disease by targeted technological means alone but as a complex of strategies that determined people's livelihood and quality of life. Intersectoral developmental linkages, equity, basic needs, and people's participation were seen as the key instruments of PHC.5 In consonance with this trend, at the conference organised by the Rockefeller Foundation in 1979, the principal working paper had concluded that "health inputs and sanitation facilities were less able to explain variations in levels of life expectancy than were social factors".6 However, this view was attacked by those who argued that "it was impossible to grasp the composite nature of the many different health problems and disorders".7 They attempted to determine the role of specific medical interventions to 'lower costs'. In other words, welfare strategies were to limit interventions to areas that ensure quick monetary returns.