Overview of CSI spend on safety and security in 2025

National context  

• The peace and security budget increased from R244 billion in 2024/25 to R266 billion in 2025/26, constituting 10.3% of consolidated government expenditure of R2.59 trillion for the year. Of this, police services received R125 billion, law courts and prisons R54 billion, defence and state security R53 billion and home affairs R11 billion.  
• The South African Police Service’s (SAPS) crime statistics for the 2024/25 financial year showed a slight decrease in contact crimes from the previous year to about 670 000 incidents, including 27 061 murders and 53 061 sexual offences. 
• The SAPS and government hosted the first National Policing Summit over three days in April 2025. The summit brought together government officials, police leadership, academics and community members to discuss service delivery, the evolving policing landscape, harnessing the power of technology and strengthening the SAPS workforce. The summit ended with an agreement to establish a National Policing Summit Operations Room to track the progress of summit resolutions over the next five years. 
• The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) and Asset Forfeiture Unit report that over R10 billion has been recovered in state capture-related cases since the SIU investigations began in 2018 up to March 2025. 
• Government will finalise the Whistleblower Protection Framework and introduce the Whistleblower Protections Bill in Parliament before the end of this financial year in February 2026. In 2025, the police and government took significant steps to arrest people linked to the looting of state funds from Tembisa Hospital. Babita Deokaran, who worked in the Gauteng Health Department, was killed in 2021 after blowing the whistle on corruption worth billions at Tembisa Hospital. 
• South Africa was ranked 124 out of 163 countries in the Institute for Economics and Peace’s Global Peace Index 2025, moving up three places from its 2024 ranking. The 2025 index found that the world became less peaceful for the 13th time in the past 17 years, with the average level of country peacefulness deteriorating by almost 0.4% over the prior year. This marks the sixth consecutive year that peacefulness has declined.  
• The global Financial Action Task Force (FATF) greylisted South Africa in February 2023, subjecting it to additional oversight due to eight areas of deficiencies in tackling money laundering and illicit financial flows. As at June 2025, the country had completed all 22 action items and a FATF on-site visit was hosted in July 2025. On 24 October 2025, the FATF announced South Africa’s removal from the list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring after completing its action plan. 

Overview of CSI spend  

Safety and security initiatives were supported by 24% of companies and received 1% of average CSI expenditure. 

• Non-specific general donations accounted for the largest portion of CSI safety and security spend (31%).  
• At 21% (slightly down from 25% in 2024), road safety was the second-most supported intervention type in this sector. 
• Less than 10% of average CSI spend on safety and security in 2025 went to infrastructure, facilities and equipment (8%), national anti-crime and safety campaigns (7%) and capacity building and empowerment programmes (6%). 
• Two companies reported supporting interventions focused on victim empowerment and gender-based violence (GBV).  
• Other intervention types received 15% of average CSI allocations in this sector.