In fact, even within a single institution, it is usual to find initiatives that contradict each other-so that what may be accomplished through trying one new approach is largely offset by what may be lost through another. A renewed emphasis on poverty alleviation is perhaps the most visible new departure. Although this is of vital importance, most agencies and governments are adopting a technocratic approach to a highly complex social problem. Their focus is narrowly remedial and is all too easily associated with an attack on the principle that public services should be extended to all citizens equally. Creating a dual structure of social services-one aimed at the poor and funded by the state, and one aimed at everyone else and provided by the private sector, is good neither for social integration nor for the quality of public services.
Public provision is under attack from other quarters as well.
To offset the divisive incursion of market forces into areas that are essential for social security and stability, there has been renewed support during the past five years for some form of global social standard-setting. When linked to trade sanctions, this has proved extremely controversial. Since increasing globalization requires the elaboration of shared social norms, it is necessary to find a way out of this impasse. As the social and political nature of the market becomes obvious to a wider group of thinkers and policy makers, there is an incipient return to the kinds of integrated approaches to development that were in vogue in the 1960s and 1970s. The Comprehensive Development Framework of the World Bank, for example, tries to treat structural and social concerns in conjunction with aspects of the macroeconomy and finance.