Bad news tends to happen all at once, in a messy heap, while good news can take years or even decades to build.

As such, while it is easy to know when to publish bad news, it can be harder to pick the moments to highlight progress.

This week was one such moment. Firstly, a UN report found that close on 300 million people have moved out of poverty over the past decade. Of course, it’s a nuanced picture, as Peter Beaumont found out, but the overall trend is promising.

Second, a continent-wide free-trade deal was concluded for Africa that, in theory, would unite 1.3 billion people in a 54-nation bloc with a GDP of $3.4tn. Pitfalls and challenges remain, but the opportunity is clear.

“The general sense is that it sounds great and generates good headlines but implementation will be a problem,” said our Africa correspondent, Jason Burke.

A more prosperous Africa could have implications for the unprecedented migrant flows north from the continent into Europe. However, one thing often forgotten in the great migration debate is the economic benefits that accrue to countries that send their people abroad.

Migrants send so much money home that in some countries it amounts to more than one quarter of GDP. The global total is more than $500bn – more than three times the global aid budget.

If remittances were a single economy, they would be bigger than 90% of the countries on Earth.

Of course, migrants bring huge economic and cultural benefits to destination countries too, as Jessica Murray found out this week when she interviewed a Syrian man doing great things with eggs.

A fry-up at Mo’s Eggs in London. Mohamed Rahimeh, from Syria, launched the pop-up restaurant. Photograph: Juliette Lyons

Lucky numbers

The New York Times established that the number of new HIV infections was falling sharply in Australia. The number of Aids-related deaths globally has halved since 2005.

Meanwhile, inflation in Venezuela dropped for the second month in a row. It is still above 400,000%, so there is still some way to go.

What we liked

This piece by Christian Science Monitor on a news service for Mexican migrants.

Also, this work by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper in Japan which discovered that growing numbers of people are renting cars for purposes other than travel.

Japanese car rental companies couldn't figure out why their cars were be rented, but not driven.



So they did a survey to find out:



😴naps

👨‍💻work

📦storage

📱charge phones

🍱eat

🤙talk on the phone

📺watch TV

🎃dress up for halloween

🎶practice rappinghttps://t.co/9qNg4r2DXy — James Riney 🐠 (@james_riney) July 4, 2019

And finally, this essay on Open Democracy about a better way to organise our digital data as a common resource, not as the assets of profit-making companies.

What we heard

Gregory Middleton got in touch by email

Have you looked at the booming business of recycling water bottles in India.

If you put a water bottle down on a train and don’t watch it, a kid will grab it for the few pisa he’ll get, hotels collect them and they all go to families that then sell them to factories that turn them into yarn.

Thanks Gregory – I think you’ve told the story for us

Dr Mike Jeffries gave us a tip about pond life

Ponds are powerful carbon sinks, even very small ponds, the sort you can find dotted across the temperate, intensively farmed Europe and North America. They are wildlife hotspots, supporting unusually high numbers of rare species. Ponds are not difficult to create and can be fitted in among other land uses. Tree planting looks a good bet for helping mitigate carbon but ponds are easier: ponds can be created much more readily and fitted in all over the place. Plus people like ponds, a childish delight which might also explain why we tend to overlook their potential. Hope this unlocks another positive train of thought.

Jagsfan80 wrote below the line on Sarah Johnson’s piece about a new loyalty scheme card that is helping people overcome addictions

Sounds like a brilliant and innovative idea. There are many socially conscious tech initiatives like this so it’s good to see a feel-good story from the tech world rather than the usual (and often necessary) focus on unaccountable power, tax avoidance and data hoovering. Also never thought I’d praise Nando’s either but kudos to them for getting on board.

Also, we heard stuff on Twitter, as ever:

Where was the Upside?

With the US philanthropists, building up a war chest for climate activists to maintain the pressure on governments to address the climate emergency.

Also, at Edgbaston, of course (apologies to all Australians and sports haters).

Roy Photograph: Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images

Thanks for reading. Tell a friend about us. Get in touch with your best ideas, so we can then pretend they are ours. Write to theupside@theguardian.com.



