In both Morocco and South Africa, since at least the mid-20th century, water has been entrusted to powerful state bureaucracies embracing a 'hydraulic mission', what some authors have dubbed 'hydrocracies' (Molle, Mollinga and Worster, 2009). In Morocco, the emergence of a powerful hydrocracy can be traced back to the French Protectorate in the 1920s, under the Resident General Steeg (Pritchard, 2012). Since the late 19th Century, South Africa has started building a strong water administration and soon developed a world recognized expertise especially in massive inter-basin transfers (Blanchon, 2012). Its civil engineers have managed to export their know-how on the African continent (and even to the rest of the world) and take an active part in the water epistemic community at the international level, especially through the ICOLD (International Commission on Large Dams). However, both countries also went through a neoliberal State restructuring in the 1980s and 1990s, a process that was susceptible to challenge this bureaucratic dominance. This paper seeks to explore the ways by which these hydrocracies have reacted and adapted to these challenges. Based on semi-structured interviews, this paper argues that powerful hydrocracies still exist in Morocco and South Africa, but that they have been considerably reshaped over the last two to three decades. In Morocco, the Public Work administration reacted to these challenges by pre-emptively seizing the IWRM discourse and taking the initiative to draft a new water law in 1995. The law was conspicuously inspired by the new global norm but was in fact carefully and ambiguously worded. Subsequent regulations were drafted in close cooperation with the Agriculture administration, and put less and less emphasis on demand management, and more and more on renewed supply-side solutions. It is therefore unsurprising that the number of dams increased from 110 in 2004 to 139 in 2015, the national strategy for water now intending to p