The Family and the MDGs: Using Family Capital to Achieve the 8 Millennium Development Goals

“The Family and the MDGs” validates the central role of families in creating stable, healthy societies. The book’s focus is to offer “practical examples that can be replicated by families throughout the world … to facilitate the use of ‘family capital’ to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.” The MDGs are eight international development goals that all United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve by 2015. Funded by a grant from the Doha International Institute for Family Studies and Development, based in Doha, Qatar, the book is divided into eight main sections, each addressing one of the MDGs, which include “overcoming poverty and hunger,” “maternal health,” “child mortality,” “combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases," and "environmental sustainability.” With a preface and section by Susan Roylance and sections written by Robert C. Roylance, E. Douglas Clark, Robert B. Clark and Renae Morgan, Utah is well represented in the book. Each of these professionals is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and each has been highly involved in promoting the health and well-being of families on an international scale. Full of practical examples and hands-on experiences, the book illustrates ways people worldwide value the traditional family as the core unit of society and its vital role in facilitating change for good. To make the book easy to navigate, each section is color-coded and contains photos, graphs and charts that aid the reader in understanding the scholarly text. Contributors to the book span the globe and represent countries such as Kenya, Mozambique, Cambodia, India and Guatemala. Extensive endnotes for each section and an index are included. -- Rosemarie Howard