Reducing violence in South Africa

The document provides a detailed analysis of the South African national and provincial budget cycles, distinguishing between costing, budgeting, and funding. It argues that due to a constrained economic climate and rising public debt, new funding for violence prevention is unlikely, necessitating a strategy of reprioritisation from non-core areas. The authors recommend that advocates for violence prevention develop credible implementation plans, create short-term outcome measures to fit three-year budget cycles, and target key officials in the National Treasury and provincial departments to ensure these programmes remain a political priority.

• The South African government faces significant fiscal constraints, with national revenue under pressure and government debt approaching unsustainable levels, leading to a period of austerity where funding for new policy initiatives is extremely limited.
• Budgeting for primary violence prevention is complicated by the fact that responsibility for these programmes is fragmented across multiple government departments, such as Health, Social Development, Police, and Justice, which are often situated in different National Treasury function groups.
• Violence prevention programmes face a unique challenge in securing funding because their results are typically measured over a long time horizon, which may not align with the three-year Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) cycle used by the government.
• To secure funding in a constrained environment, the document suggests that violence prevention must be framed as a 'core' priority so that funds can be released through the reprioritisation of non-core areas, such as reducing spending on travel, subsistence, and catering.
• The National Treasury can influence provincial spending on violence prevention through the Technical Committee for Finance (TCF) and 'Provincial Budget Benchmarks', although the constitutional division of powers means the national government cannot force compliance unless Section 100 of the Constitution is invoked.
• A successful budget bid for violence prevention requires a credible implementation plan, a clear theory of change, and evidence of the programme's ability to deliver measurable results, as treasuries are unlikely to allocate funds to departments with a reputation for underspending.

APA

Abdoll, C., & Mayet, Y. (2017). Reducing violence in South Africa. Institute for Security Studies. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/policy-brief107-v2.pdf

Chicago

Abdoll, Carmen, and Yusuf Mayet. Reducing violence in South Africa. Institute for Security Studies, 2017. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/policy-brief107-v2.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Abdoll |first1=Carmen |last2=Mayet |first2=Yusuf |title=Reducing violence in South Africa |publisher=Institute for Security Studies |date=2017 |url=https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/policy-brief107-v2.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{abdoll2017reducing, author = {Abdoll, Carmen and Mayet, Yusuf}, title = {{Reducing violence in South Africa}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, year = {2017}, url = {https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/policy-brief107-v2.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }