This archive collects milestones and progress stories involving nations — countries and their governments — acting to improve lives, protect rights, or address shared challenges. From policy breakthroughs to international cooperation, these stories show what countries are doing right.
Papahānaumokuākea became the largest marine protected area on Earth in 2016, when President Obama expanded the Hawaiian ocean sanctuary to 582,578 square miles — more than four times its original size. The reserve shelters over 7,000 species, including Hawaiian monk seals and black coral, in some of the most intact reefs in U.S. waters.
Private prisons faced a rare federal reversal in the summer of 2016, when Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates ordered the Justice Department to phase out its contracts with private operators. The directive followed an Inspector General report finding higher rates of assaults and contraband in private facilities. It stood for six months before being rescinded — but the formal record remained.
The kindergarten readiness gap narrowed between 1998 and 2010, surprising the Stanford and UVA researchers who expected the opposite. Their 2016 studies found low-income children arrived at school 10 to 16 percent closer to their wealthier peers, with parents across income levels reading more and engaging earlier in their kids’ learning.
Obama’s 2016 offshore drilling ban reached from Virginia to Maine and across Alaska’s Arctic coast, shielding vast federal waters from new oil and gas leases. He did it by invoking a rarely used provision of a 1953 law, claiming permanence for the first time. The legal durability would be left for the courts to decide.
The Kigali Amendment, signed in October 2016 by around 170 nations, committed the world to phasing down hydrofluorocarbons — refrigerant gases thousands of times more heat-trapping than CO₂. Building on the ozone-saving Montreal Protocol, full implementation could prevent roughly half a degree Celsius of warming by 2100, a rare case of climate diplomacy working quickly and at scale.
High-speed internet became a basic right in Canada in December 2016, when regulators declared broadband as essential as phone or postal service. The ruling set a national target of 50 Mbps download speeds for every household and created a $750 million fund to reach rural, remote, and Indigenous communities long left behind by private providers.
Bears Ears and Gold Butte became national monuments in December 2016, when President Obama used the 1906 Antiquities Act to protect 1.65 million acres across Utah and Nevada. Bears Ears broke new ground with a tribal advisory commission, giving five Native nations a formal voice in managing ancestral land long sought for federal protection.
A glow-in-the-dark bicycle path opened in the rural Polish town of Lidzbark Warminski, emitting deep blue light for up to 10 hours a night without touching the electrical grid. Luminophore particles embedded in the 328-foot surface soak up sunlight by day and release it after dark. A small, quiet experiment in making rural roads safer — and unexpectedly beautiful.
Wind-hydro turbines are rising in Germany’s Swabian-Franconian forest, where four towers double as gravity batteries by pumping water up inside themselves when the wind blows and releasing it downhill when it stops. At 809 feet, they’re the world’s tallest, and they hint at a cleaner way to solve wind power’s oldest problem: timing.
In September 2016, Guatemala was declared free of river blindness, ending a parasitic disease that had threatened sight and livelihoods in rural communities along fast-flowing rivers. The victory came after more than 20 years of twice-yearly Mectizan treatments reaching at least 85% of eligible people. It’s a reminder that patient, community-rooted public health work can undo old harms.
