For three years, Cape Town has suffered a crippling drought that has left the city facing the prospect of dry taps. Local and national leadership have come under fire for their handling of the water shortage, including the city’s mayor, who faced a motion of no confidence and was stripped of her water-related responsibilities. Early in 2018, a national disaster was declared. But while it is tempting — and satisfying — to find someone to blame for the crisis, there are lessons to be learnt from the situation that could benefit service delivery more broadly. Chief among these is that building a fully operational system of accountability is more powerful in the long run than blame-driven leadership. Accountability systems research says that in times of crisis, it is tempting to fall into blame processes, though this is not necessarily the most help-ful approach. People’s instinct is to ask who is to blame and, often, who is most to blame. Certainly there are sometimes things and people...
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