HIV infection rates in Africa have slowed since the start of the decade, but statistics still make very grim reading on the worst affected continent – of the global total of 2.1 million deaths due to AIDS in 2007, 1.6 million were in sub-Saharan Africa.

An estimated 1.7 million people were infected with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa in 2007 compared to 2.2 million new infections in 2001.

Some now fear that progress could be knocked off course by the global financial crisis, potentially reducing the funds that Western donors have available for fighting the disease and providing treatment.

An official from the Global Call to Action against Poverty said recently that Kenya had already been asked by one donor to fund HIV and tuberculosis programme itself. Other donors, such as Oxfam, have said they fear the financial crisis will lead to funding cuts as developed countries have other priorities – such as saving their financial systems.

In a speech in a South African township this week, the newly appointed head of the U.N. agency UNAIDS noted that the “world has a responsibility to stabilise the market failure”

“But the same world has a moral responsibility to make sure that four million people who are on (HIV) treatment will continue to have treatment, six million more will have access to treatment…,” said UNAIDS executive director Michel Sidibe.

UNAIDS says it needs about $25 billion to ensure universal access to HIV treatment by 2010. It says interrupting funding could lead to millions of deaths in Africa.

Can AIDS still be tackled effectively by poor countries without as much in donor funding? What should governments do? What do you think?

Given that the leaders of the world’s most firmly capitalist countries are splashing around unprecedented billions to nationalise banks, prop up industry and try to get economies moving, it might seem churlish for anyone to question South Africa’s ruling ANC for planning to spend a bit more freely.

This weekend, the African National Congress set out its election manifesto priorities of creating jobs and improving education and health - promises interpreted by many as marking a generally leftward shift under the leadership of president in waiting Jacob Zuma.

But the plan raises the questions of how the spending will be paid for and how dramatic a shift to the left there will be - of major interest to investors as well as South Africans.

“Zuma did not attach a price tag to the manifesto, but ANC leaders privately admit, to allay fears of a tax hike, that it would be too costly to implement,” said this article in the Sunday Independent.

Africa’s biggest economy has grown significantly since the end of apartheid in 1994, although the dynamism had started to falter even before the global financial crisis spread gloom around the world.

South Africa’s poor and its workers had long complained that the benefits were not being shared around fairly and that only those in a new elite were thriving. The leadership under Zuma, widely expected to become president this year, was always going to be under pressure for more social spending from the ANC grassroots and the party’s union and Communist Party allies.

The pressure may have increased further with the emergence of the new COPE party after the ousting of President Thabo Mbeki. Although COPE’s electoral impact is uncertain and it has not yet spelled out its policies clearly, the fact that close allies of Mbeki are behind it has suggested it is likely to align more with the former president’s stance, seen as ‘pro-business’.

Zuma has always been at great pains to spell out to business leaders and foreign investors that there would be no dramatic changes under his rule. Flight of investment could further weaken the rand, mean job losses just at the moment when the ANC wants to create more and force up government borrowing costs.

That could make it even harder to finance populist pledges without resorting to measures that might create even more financial instability.

This article in South Africa’s Times raised questions over the ANC’s plans for the central bank and whether that would damage its standing as a pillar of macroeconomic stability seen as vital for growth.

It is certainly going to be a very tricky time. How substantial do you think any shift to the left is and would it be for the best? If conflicting promises have been made to different interest groups then which are going to be met? Can they all? If not, then what will be the reaction of those who feel disappointed?

(Picture: President of the ruling African National Congress Jacob Zuma dances on stage at his party’s election campaign launch. Reuters)

Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua took office a year ago promising to pursue free-market reforms launched by his predecessor, Olusegun Obasanjo, vowing zero tolerance for corruption and listing seven national priorities including improving power supply and reducing food insecurity.

A year on, his critics say economic reforms are grinding to a halt, his anti-corruption efforts are just window-dressing and his cabinet is largely a collection of ineffective bureaucrats who are but a shadow of an all-star cast in the former administration.

His supporters say his efforts to entrench the rule of law are a vital opportunity for Nigeria to make a break after decades of corruption and cronyism, and that while progress may be slow, he is laying the underpinnings for much stronger institutions in the country.

Does Yar’Adua have the political muscle he needs to lead Africa’s most populous nation? Is his oft-repeated mantra of the rule of law a step change in Nigeria? Or has the country lost the momentum it built up under Obasanjo? What do you think?