North Africa

North Africa spans countries including Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt — a region where progress in renewable energy, health access, education, and economic development is reshaping communities. This archive collects solutions-focused reporting on the people, policies, and initiatives driving meaningful change across the region.

Tunisian flag, for article on trachoma elimination

Tunisia eliminates trachoma as a public health problem

By / / Good News For Humankind

Trachoma is officially gone as a public health problem in Tunisia — a disease that once affected at least half the country’s population. The World Health Organization has now validated Tunisia as the 31st country to eliminate it, and the first neglected tropical disease ever crossed off the country’s list. The win came from decades of patient work: nationwide screening, eye care woven into schools and clinics, hygiene outreach, and steady improvements in water and sanitation. Around the world, roughly 1.9 million people still live with trachoma-related blindness or visual impairment, and 136 million remain at risk. Tunisia’s story is proof that preventable blindness doesn’t have to stay that way — and a hopeful nudge toward the WHO’s 2030 goal of ending trachoma everywhere.

A rural health worker examines a child's eye in bright sunlight for an article about trachoma elimination in Egypt

Egypt eliminates trachoma, ending millennia of preventable blindness

By / / Good News For Humankind

Egypt has eliminated trachoma as a public health problem, ending a bacterial eye disease that has blinded people in the Nile Valley for more than 3,000 years. The World Health Organization formally validated the achievement, making Egypt the 27th country to reach this milestone. Success came through two decades of coordinated effort combining surgery, antibiotics, hygiene education, and expanded rural sanitation infrastructure. The elimination is significant because Egypt’s scale — over 100 million people across complex rural geography — demonstrates that the WHO’s goal of global trachoma elimination by 2030 is achievable.

A North Atlantic right whale surfacing in open ocean for an article about right whale protection — 13 words. **Suggested image:** Search Unsplash for "right whale ocean" or "whale ocean surface." A strong candidate: - **Unsplash:** https://unsplash.com/photos/a-humpback-whale-jumping-out-of-the-water — verify licensing (Unsplash License, free to use). - Alternatively, NOAA's public domain image library (fisheries.noaa.gov) has free-to-use right whale photographs: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/north-atlantic-right-whale — these are U.S. government works in the public domain. Recommended credit: NOAA Fisheries / public domain, or Unsplash photographer name if sourced there.

Clinton-era ocean push secured landmark protections for whales and dolphins

By / / Good News For Humankind

Ocean mammal protection advanced significantly in the mid-1990s when the United States led landmark international agreements safeguarding whales and dolphins from commercial shipping and industrial fishing. The Clinton administration proposed real-time navigation alerts to help ship captains avoid North Atlantic right whales, while U.S.-led negotiations produced a dolphin protection accord that passed the Senate 99-0 and dramatically reduced bycatch mortality in the eastern tropical Pacific. These measures were part of a broader ocean governance framework addressing dumping, overfishing, and marine pollution simultaneously. The agreements proved that commercial industries could adapt, scientific monitoring could be legally enforced, and international cetacean protections were genuinely achievable.

Sahara scimitar Oryx, for article on scimitar horned oryx

North Africa’s scimitar horned oryx becomes first species ever to be downlisted from extinct in the wild to endangered

By / / Good News For Humankind

The scimitar horned oryx just made conservation history as the first species ever downlisted from Extinct in the Wild to Endangered by the IUCN. This pale, curve-horned antelope vanished from the Sahara before the millennium, hunted to zero in the wild. Now a self-sustaining herd roams Chad’s Ouadi Rimé–Ouadi Achim Reserve, a protected area roughly the size of Scotland, rebuilt from zoo populations through nearly four decades of patient international collaboration. Even better, the oryx grazes grasslands open and helps slow the Sahara’s spread, making its return a quiet act of climate repair. For the 94 other species still surviving only in human care, it’s proof that “extinct” need not be the final word.