As Zimbabwe's inflation continues on its stratospheric path and this year's poor harvest exacerbates grain shortages, even bread is disappearing from shop shelves. In late September, the country's biggest baker, Lobels Bread, had to slash operations by four fifths because it was running out of flour, the BBC reported.

Dwindling supplies of affordable food have given rise to a new profession - the "queuer". According to U.N. news agency IRIN, these entrepreneurs of desperation wait in line to buy goods whose official prices have been cut by the government, and then sell them on at a premium. The key is to know what'll be available, when and where.

The Famine Early Warning System predicts that food security in Zimbabwe is likely to decline until at least February next year, when the early harvest starts. It says 4.1 million people in both rural and urban areas are expected to need emergency aid over the next six months.

More optimistically, it adds that as long as government plans to import cereals and food aid programmes are implemented, the risk of mass starvation and famine will be mitigated.

This suggests that while Zimbabwe's crisis is escalating, there's still a chance it may not reach a scale that would cause the country to collapse. It's a view some policy experts concur with.

Michelle Gavin, an international affairs fellow at the U.S.-based Council on Foreign Relations, told AlertNet that Zimbabwe's neighbours are committed to averting the "nightmare possibility" of economic and political meltdown: "South Africa has real leverage, and is not interested in a completed collapse in Ziimbabwe. No one wants to see a failed state."

Speaking at London's Chatham House think tank, she said that while the current situation was unsustainable, she didn't forsee a popular uprising. "When it comes, change is likely to be less about people power. It's probably not going to be dramatic but incremental change within the ruling party. The question is how profound will it be?"

Gavin - who's written a soon-to-be-published special report on Zimbabwe for the CFR - argued that the international community should continue to provide humanitarian aid, while preparing to re-engage fully and help Zimbabwe recover after political change. She proposed the establishment of a trust fund, along with planning by donors to coordinate future aid.

This kind of approach may sound reasonable. But it still begs the thorny question of under what conditions Western donors like Britain - which has taken a tough stand against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe - and the United States would be prepared to start giving longer-term support to the former British colony.

NEED FOR BETTER GOVERNANCE

Gavin said it was necessary to avoid the trap of embracing "an anyone-but-Mugabe approach while the system stays the same". She recommended an emphasis on better governance - adherence to the rule of law, an end to political violence, and free and fair elections.

But once Zimbabwe was back on the good governance track, it would need more than macro-economic stability and the return of political exiles from abroad, she argued. International donors should plan to help revive agriculture, including technical assistance for a land audit. Other key areas would be reform of the security sector and job creation on a mass scale for Zimbabwean youths.

Knox Chitiyo, Africa director at the Royal United Services Institute, agreed that Western donors should continue to engage with Zimbabwe and be ready to ramp up development aid. But he warned against trying to hurry things along outside an initiative launched by the regional intergovernmental organisation, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), to facilitate a negotiated political solution. Much is riding on elections due in or after March 2008, when Mugabe's current term ends.

"The United States needs to recognise the regional role being played by the SADC," said Chitiyo. "People claim it isn't moving fast enough, but it's the only major game in town. By supporting it, the United States could repair its less-than-brilliant image in southern Africa."

International Crisis Group has also said that the SADC mediation, led by South African President Thabo Mbeki, offers the only realistic chance to escape what it describes as "a crisis that increasingly threatens to destabilise the region". To succeed, however, SADC needs full support from the international community, and must resolve its internal differences about how hard to press Mugabe into retirement, the Brussels-based think tank argued in a September report.

Yet amid all the high-level political manouevring and planning for longer-term recovery, what of the prospects for ordinary Zimbabweans? Gavin, along with many other observers, believes civil society must get a seat at the political table - but how to achieve that is less clear.

Chitiyo cautioned against overlooking key issues that went unaddressed in the excitement following Zimbabwe's independence in 1980, such as land reform.

"What is the price people are willing to pay for a managed political transition?" he asked. "The main focus is on trying to negotiate a way out of the current crisis without bloodshed, but there's a chance civil rights will get lost again."

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