The main challenge that has been associated with the civil society organisations (CSO) sector in South Africa over the years has been the lack of financial security, despite the funding that the government is spending on CSOs, the politics of funding continues to dominate the CSO sector in South Africa.

Most of the national and provincial government departments on their budgets have the allocations for the Non-profit institutions so as to try and support the CSOs in carrying their mandates as per the provision made by the NPO Act of 1997. However, what remains remarkably unclear is how much money government spends on CSOs. Since funding is still regarded as a major obstacle that CSOs in South Africa face. As Sibanda (2009) puts it, when looking at government funding the sector is visible to be lacking access to financial support and to an extent general support as well as public contributions.