Thirty years ago last month 134 Member States of the World Health Organization gathered in the former Kazakh capital, Alma-Ata, against a backdrop of the Cold War, at an international conference to reach a landmark agreement: to adopt primary health care as the key strategy for achieving ‘health for all’ by the year 2000. Dr Halfdan Mahler, who was director-general at the time, talks to the Bulletin about why primary health care lost its way and his hopes for its renewal today.