Much Done With Little

With apologies to William Shakespeare, I have borrowed the title of his celebrated comedy, ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, and recast it for a very different Namibian story: ‘Much Done With Little’.

Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet and actor widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist.

Written around 1598 or 1599 and set in the Italian harbour town of Messina, the play turns on romance, gossip, rumour and overheard conversations after a group of soldiers arrives in town.

In the play’s title, ‘nothing’ is meant to be ‘noting’, which in turn means gossip, rumour or overhearing.

But enough of the English lesson. The real story this week is economic: across northern Namibia, entrepreneurs are showing what it truly means to do much with little.

Over the past few weeks, my colleagues and I have travelled through Namibia’s geographical north, particularly the area colloquially known as the four-O regions.

We have been visiting entrepreneurs at their workshops, places of business and sites of jobs currently underway, to verify their applications for participating in a business growth programme funded by a leading brewer and beverage maker.

What we found was both inspiring and unsettling: Namibian micro and small enterprises, especially carpenters and welders, are producing remarkable work with rudimentary equipment, basic tools and very little support.

It was the carpenters and welders in villages and settlements who stood shouldered above the rest visited, being plumbers, electricians and builders.

The carpenters, with basic schooling and skills mostly gained from attending short courses and on-the-job or trial-and-error experience, make beds, cupboards, wardrobes, tables and chairs for the local community.

The welders in turn make and repair donkey carts, vehicle railings and nudge bars. Erecting fences and gates. Making roof trusses, doors, security screens and fences, livestock enclosures and chicken runs are usually also part of their service offering, all without which locals will be at a loss.

This is what ‘much done with little’ looks like in practice: skill, ingenuity and community value created despite scarce resources and limited support.

Then again, over the passage of time, Namibia has produced many entrepreneurs who achieved remarkable results with minimal resources at their disposal and in an absence of little if any support.

From sleeping in rudimentary structures, the absence of a workshop, working in the open they went on to build thriving businesses.

We heard stories repeatedly of resilience, smart thinking, strategy and the sheer willpower of entrepreneurs who started with nothing worked hard and smart, stood up when they fell over and refused to ever take no for an answer.

The business genesis started by turning a dream into reality and despite the odds stacked against them, by ignoring the warnings of naysayers, usually close family and friends, just got going.

Resourcefulness is also known as bootstrapping and this laid at the foundation of those can-doers. They didn’t wait for handouts, found innovative ways to start their entrepreneurial journey by using the little they had.

The entrepreneurs said they value continuous learning, whether through further education or self-teaching. Tech-savvy among them proudly claiming they now attend a different kind of university, the University of YouTube.

An eye-opener indeed: so much being done with so little.

• Danny Meyer is reachable at

  danny@smecompete.com

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