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Access to water supply is still a problem in African cities. This has sparked discussions about how small-scale private actors could collaborate with the state to improve water supply. However, scholarly discussions on water supply have hardly examined the role of such actors in maintenance and repair. This paper shows how water infrastructures are maintained and repaired through hybrid labor relations between private and public actors where formal and informal practices are combined. These findings allow us to shift conceptualization in maintenance and repair beyond the state and explain how private actors enact and challenge the state's power through maintenance and repair practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Donor funding schemes in water supply mainly focus on constructing centralized water systems. • Donor funding schemes usually entail technology transfer without enhancing local experts' capacity for for maintenance & repair i. • Strong reliance on imported spare parts, experts' knowledge, and engineering services for maintenance & repair. • Reliance on imported technologies enhance export markets for donor countries' technological products. In many African countries, international donor funding schemes contribute significantly to financing water infrastructures, especially for constructing new networks and water plants and upgrading existing ones. However, little is known about how these financial arrangements shape infrastructure maintenance and repair. This article explores the politics of tied water aid to show how international donors' technology transfer schemes and their associated funding conditionalities shape water infrastructure maintenance and repair. Empirically, this study builds on a qualitative study of the cities of Accra (Ghana) and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), where the maintenance and repair of water infrastructures have been a persistent challenge. The article shows that the compulsory adoption of foreign technologies embedded in donors' funding schemes limits local capacity to properly maintain and repair water infrastructure. As maintenance and repair increasingly depend on imported expert knowledge, spare parts, and engineering services, donors' funding schemes undermine effective maintenance and repair in both cities. We argue that to make transferred water technologies work sustainably in recipient countries, funding schemes need to anticipate maintenance and repair by incorporating local capacity building and knowledge transfer to reduce import dependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]