Behind the high bougainvillea hedges of Harare's more affluent suburbs, there are the first murmurings of a possible improvement in daily life in Zimbabwe, at least in the capital.

In some places, long-forgotten public services have stirred. Rubbish is being collected and workmen have even been seen painting white lines on the potholed roads. Gone are the bread queues and the snaking lines of cars awaiting black-market fuel. The sugar, soap, cooking oil and eggs that arrived in minibus convoys from Botswana or South Africa can now be bought locally.

Printed price tags, consigned to folk memory during the nightmare of hyperinflation, have made a tentative reappearance in some shops as the disappearance of the Zimbabwean dollar and its replacement with the US dollar and the South African rand stabilises costs. In smarter areas such as Borrowdale, where President Robert Mugabe has his walled mansion, or Avondale, where prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai lives, the supermarkets are stuffed with imported goods.

In so-called "high-density suburbs" such as Glen View and Warren Park – townships built under white rule as holding areas for cheap black labour – the schools have reopened, with teachers back at work after ending their five-month strike.

"I am happy for now, since I'm now able to get $100 per month, which is more than what Mugabe was giving us," said Ncube, a teacher. "The good thing is that prices of basic goods have gone down drastically, and having US dollars is meaningful."

Does this mean Zimbabwe is at last turning the corner after a nightmare 12 months in which the country was engulfed by political violence, the economy collapsed and basic services deteriorated to the point where cholera, an easily preventable disease, was rampant?

One answer might be that, in some respects, things have at least stopped getting worse. Political intimidation is down and most prominent government opponents are out of detention. Even Roy Bennett, the outspoken Mugabe critic, has been released on bail to join his MDC colleagues in the new government, although the president told cabinet colleagues he would "never" swear in his old adversary to his role as deputy minister of agriculture.

The World Health Organisation had some good news about the cholera crisis last week. An epidemic that long ago surpassed its worst-case scenario by a third, with 90,000 infections, was "past its peak", the UN agency said. As the rainy season ends, the expected drop in new cases has come, slowing from 3,800 a week to 2,000 by mid-March.

Senior members of the MDC have used such developments to argue that it is time for the international community to re-engage with Zimbabwe. They received forceful support from South Africa's president-in-waiting, Jacob Zuma, who described the refusal to hand large sums in aid to the Mugabe-led government as "very unfair to the Zimbabwean people".

Zuma, who is poised to take office after the South African election on 22 April, said last week: "You cannot say [Zimbabwe] has stabilised, but it has entered a phase of stabilisation politically." He even had words of support for Zimbabwe's 85-year-old president: "When there was an election, it is not as if not a single human being voted for Mugabe in Zimbabwe. He had a very big percentage himself."

What if donors do not heed Zuma's words, and fail to support a prompt peace dividend to ordinary Zimbabweans? The country's new finance minister, Tendai Biti, is in no doubt. "The consequences of the unity government not working are drastic," he said. "It will lead to a collapse of the state and all the civil unrest that follows the failure of a state."

Most diplomats understood that such an outburst, from the man commonly viewed as the most capable thinker in MDC ranks, reflects the increasing desperation in his party. The former opposition understands all too well that the image of recovery in Zimbabwe is false. Biti and his colleagues no longer speak of the "benchmarks" they set when entering the new government, by which those outside it could judge its progress and the good faith of Mugabe's Zanu-PF party.

Those criteria are worth recalling: the release of political prisoners, the appointment of new regional governors, the sacking of the attorney general and the reserve bank governor, the restoration of the rule of law, and an end to farm invasions. Only one of those has been met in any meaningful way, but even those prisoners who have been released are still facing trumped-up charges.

This explains the reaction of a team from the International Monetary Fund, which said last week there would be no new investment until the government changed its "track record". The next day a commitment of $10m from Sweden bypassed the government in Harare and went straight to humanitarian agencies.

There remain virtually no jobs outside the state sector, and remittances from the three million Zimbabweans working abroad – a crucial lifeline for families left behind – are in decline in a global recession. While "dollarisation" has meant a welcome return of goods and services for those with access to currency, for most it has spelled disaster. There is practically no money in the system, and the government has been forced to switch from cash payments to civil servants to coupons, most of which are now being refused as banks do not have the cash to redeem them.

The experience of Rumbi Kazingizi, a middle-class housewife, is frighteningly common. "Food is still not easily available," she said. "Although it's now cheap, where to get the money to buy the food is the biggest challenge."

Meanwhile farm invasions have intensified. While the finance minister appeals for funds, his Zanu-PF colleagues in cabinet sign paperwork allowing fresh farm seizures, and the prime minister rages against "land thefts".

With their own political credibility on the line, Tsvangirai and his allies are facing a bitter realisation: they have given the powerful clique around Mugabe the political space to carry on regardless.