Non-payment for water services is increasing in municipalities across South Africa and is threatening the sustainability of water service provision. It is hypothesized that non-payment for water services is a result of socio-economic, technical and governance failures in particular contexts, as well as socio-cultural and political discourses at both the local and national level. This study focuses on the socio-economic and technical-institutional aspects of non-payment for water services in traditional authority, township and low cost housing projects areas of eThekwini Municipality. It aims to understand the historical, geographical, socio-economic, technical and political factors, which underpin non-payment for water services. The study does not consider debt management, but rather focuses on the deeper and more complex issue of non-payment for services. Given its transdisciplinary approach, the project will design and test pilot socio-economic and technical-institutional interventions in three settlement areas, to address non-payment for water services. These will be developed in collaboration with societal actors (municipal officials, communities, NGOs, civil society organisations) in eThekwini Municipality. The research adopts a transdisciplinary approach, as scientists (social scientists and engineers) will interact with societal actors to explore and suggest solutions to these challenges. These innovative socio-economic and technical-institutional interventions will be tested in three experimental sites across eThekwini Municipality, with a focus on traditional authority areas, townships and low cost housing projects areas, which face significant water and sanitation challenges (SERI, 2019). The focus of the study is on eThekwini Municipality, but actors in the water sector across South Africa will be included in two transdisciplinary learning labs, as part of the study. The lessons learnt in eThekwini Municipality will be relevant to, and can be shared with, other municipalities across South Africa. There is a strong focus on social learning, the co-production of knowledge and building state-citizen social compacts in this project. With eThekwini Municipality’s non-revenue water reaching 51.95% in the financial year end report for 2019/2020, the project team believes the municipality has reached a tipping point with regard to non-revenue water (eThekwini Municipality, 2020), which includes the non-payment for water services. It is critical that the reasons for non-payment for water services in eThekwini Municipality are understood in terms of their socio-economic, technical, institutional and political dimensions, if sustainable solutions for payment for water services are to be developed and implemented.