Hail the Small-Scale Entrepreneur

The word 'entrepreneur' derives from the French for'somebody who undertakes'; its more common business usage describes people who are initiators, risk-takers, financiers. They are the people who set up enterprises - they can range from the young boy with his shoe-shine kit to the businessperson who opens a new supermarket. Without entrepreneurs, there is little or no business. Entrepreneurs may have academic and professional qualifications but it is not essential. Some of the world's greatest

The woman trying delicious fish at a strategic spot in the Ghanaian market or the boy selling ice lollies at a football match in Nigeria are as much entrepreneurs as a De Beers executive selling sparkling rocks at exorbitant prices in the capitals of the world. The JIM Kali craftsmen in Nairobi who can fabricate a Mercedes-Benz grill from odds and sods are no less inventive in their enterprise as the Ferrari engineers fabricating a new engine for their Formula One cars.

What they all have in common is the spirit of enterprise. They are all natural entrepreneurs. Africa, as we know from our everyday experiences, is full of inventive, energetic, ingenious entrepreneurs.

In rich countries, entrepreneurs are the modern heroes. Those who have fresh, original ideas and know how to turn ideas into reality command the highest salaries. They have easy access to a very deep well of accumulated knowledge. There are all kinds of systems and institutions to help them create new products and processes or present old products in new guises.

In Africa, the entrepreneur, unless he or she is suited and booted and driving an expensive car, is often looked upon with suspicion and hostility. Banks have no time for them; municipal authorities wage war against them; unscrupulous dealers try to skin them and even the public constantly complains about them.

The real economic drivers

Yet it is these people - those with ideas, ambition, energy and the courage of their convictions - who create, build and grow economies. It is the process - by which the one-man business develops into a kiosk; the kiosk grows into a shop, the shop becomes a supermarket, the supermarket turns into a chain of stores - that produces constant, organic growth which involves the majority of the populations and raises their living standards.

The most prosperous economies in the world are also those that have the largest numbers of successful small and medium-sized businesses. The US's massive economy was not created by General Motors, Boeing or Microsoft but by the millions of small-scale entrepreneurs constantly working to improve their businesses. Napoleon once called the British "a nation of shopkeepers. Yet those shopkeepers defeated him at Waterloo.

For decades, India concentrated on supporting large industries and ignored the small and medium sized sector. The result was poverty; when it liberalised its economy, cut its red tape and allowed the small-scale entrepreneur to operate without undue hindrance, it rapidly grew to become one of the major economies of the world; ditto for China, which will become the largest global economy over the next decade and a half.

In Africa, despite pious words to the contrary, the small-scale sector and the entrepreneurs who make its work are badly neglected. Worse, they are often treated as undesirables and bullied and harassed by the authorities. Their little kiosks are often bulldozed and I have seen callous officials scattering their products, often cooked foods and fruit, into the dust.

We are too fixated by large-scale exports of unfinished resources and place too much emphasis on foreign investments and big companies. These help the economies to tick along in good times but they cannot provide the kind of acceleration of growth we desperately need. For that we have to turn to the humble small and medium scale enterprises.

The African small-scale entrepreneur needs technical and bureaucratic support, not abuse. The sector can be transformed into a substantial driver by providing these entrepreneurs with basic, simple business techniques - something which the Indians and Chinese are now busily doing.

Basic book-keeping; a systemic inventory control; improved storage to avoid spoilage and waste; daily, weekly and monthly planning schedules; asset build-up and recording to access finance; the provision of microfinance; greater product information; comparative pricing data; support in constructing permanent business premises; and a host of other simple devices taken for granted in the developed world would bring about a revolution in the sector.

If we in Africa are determined to improve our standards of living, we need to shift our vision away from the 'grand' business and begin to respect the small entrepreneur. A nation's greatest business asset is its stock of small-scale entrepreneurs - and Africa cannot afford to waste this asset which, at the moment, we are rich in.