This literature review will focus on civil society and its relationship to the state in South Africa. The first section will briefly summarize the emergence of civil society in South Africa. The next section will discuss the transformations that occurred in civil society during South Africa's transition period from apartheid to democracy in 1994. The third section will discuss some of the successes of civil society during and after the transition period, followed by the fourth section, which will discuss some challenges facing civil society as South Africa continues its journey towards democracy. Finally, the last section contains an analysis of the roles of civil society in relation to the state in the post-apartheid regime.1. Emergence of civil society in South AfricaCivil society organizations have influenced and involved the state and the success or failure of these actions. According to many academic concepts, it is possible to define different approaches of the term civil society to the relationship between democracy. Overall, we see that civil society shares similar values ​​and goals through formal organization. The beginning of democracy entailed a profound transformation in civil society, not only from a structural point of view, but also from a strategic point of view, of political objectives and of the relationship with the State. In South Africa, a mass civil society movement composed of civic associations, religious organisations, student movement and trade unions until the 1994 elections. South Africa was in transition to democracy during the 1980s and 1990s and adopted development of states approach to macroeconomic policy with variety of results and failures. In the 1990s, civil society was catapulted into cent... middle of paper... service delivery arenas. A strong relationship between civil society and the state can be a way to ensure joint efforts for the reconstruction, implementation and transformation objectives of the Constitution (Jagwath, 2003). For example, this opened up a completely new avenue for NGOs to operate and radically transformed relations with the state. Third, this sector has been supported with a favorable fiscal environment through the passing of laws and the creation of institutions aimed at facilitating a flow of resources at particular times as foreign donors have transferred their financial assistance from civil society organizations to State or in some cases government has often been unable to use foreign aid effectively without NGO assistance, and many donor agencies provide funding only on the basis of a partnership agreement between civil society structures and government.