Theme of ANQ Congress 2009 Tokyo
“Prosperity through Quality - The ANQ Way”

“The ANQ WAY” established in 2003 states:

‘Various regions of Asia form Asian Network for Quality with the Goal of contributing to creativity, integration, prosperity and quality of human life in Asia through a Strategy based on constancy of purpose, knowledge creation, voluntary spirit and system approach to improvement; living the Asian Way of harmony in diversity, mutual respect and austerity; following Core Values based on honesty, flexibility and self-control.’

Refer http://anforq.org/aboutanq/anqway.asp for more details.

Prosperity, the main theme of ANQ Congress 2009 Tokyo is taken from one of the Goals, the Reason for its Existence, in the ANQ way.

“Prosperity” in The ANQ Way is stated as: “Contributing to the prosperity of not only the current generation but also leaving a legacy for the future generations through appropriate focus on material, social and environmental issues, limiting consumption of abundant natural resources that may not be easy to renew, limiting damage to the environment that can be restored through natural activity.”

Here the definition of prosperity has to be read in the context of the other super-ordinate Goal of ANQ Way the ‘Quality of Human Life’ that states: ‘Contributing to the Quality of Human Life where people live with dignity and achieve balance in fulfilling physical, emotional, intellectual and self-actualization needs in harmony with nature.’

This is at variance with the current context of prosperity as defined in the western developed societies that primarily focuses on the GDP growth purely through market driven economy. This approach has the following attributes:

  • This creates a short term focus.
  • This tends to show the market overrides human well being. The money power of the market players through the mass media influences the people behavior in favor of immediate physical needs often at the cost of long term prosperity in terms of other human needs. It disregards the needs of other beings.
  • This assumes GDP growth by itself will lead to balance in human life. This is not necessarily true as reflected in the current economic turmoil.

It is believed the Asian Way can make a useful contribution in developing an alternate model through a new definition of quality as enunciated in the ANQ Way that may lead to prosperity in a holistic way in balance with the nature and within the composite nature of the human being. The theme of the Congress is to share experiences in developing the new approach.