Series
DW's Eco Africa
Published 12 October 2026
Tired of news that leaves you anxious and powerless? That's why we make Eco Africa — a weekly show built on one idea: the people fixing this planet deserve to be seen. We meet innovators across Africa rewriting the rules of energy, food, fashion and mobility: the entrepreneur giving waste new life, the singer teaching kids to protect nature, the community taking on polluters, the Lagos creators making sustainability go viral.
Eco Africa gives context and relevance to such stories. So if you're done with doomscrolling and ready for something that actually moves the needle you are invited to watch, share and engange.
Episodes
DW's Eco Africa Season 1
Tired of news that leaves you anxious and powerless? That's why we make Eco Africa — a weekly show built on one idea: the people fixing this planet deserve to be seen. We meet innovators across Africa rewriting the rules of energy, food, fashion and mobility: the entrepreneur giving waste new life, the singer teaching kids to protect nature, the community taking on polluters, the Lagos creators making sustainability go viral.
Eco Africa gives context and relevance to such stories. So if you're done with doomscrolling and ready for something that actually moves the needle you are invited to watch, share and engange.
1. Cleaning the Earth
26 min Cleaning the Earth
Play
2. How can we build the future better?
26 min How can we build the future better?
Play
3. Adapting to climate change
26 min Adapting to climate change
Play
4. Protecting the environment
26 min Protecting the environment
Play
5. What's good for the environment is good for us
26 min What's good for the environment is good for us
Play
6. Approaches to improving our environment
26 min Approaches to improving our environment
Play
7. Restoring our Trees
26 min Restoring our Trees
Play
8. Environmental Challenges and Problems
26 min Environmental Challenges n Problems
Play
9. Driving change by exposing environmental problems
26 min Young Ghanaian journalists are creating compelling stories about the country’s environmental issues and prompting change
Play
10. How DRC's cobalt mining boom is resulting in green jobs for women
26 min How women can profit from DRC's male-dominated mining sector and how to recycle used motor oil.
Play
11. Green mobility gains ground E-cargo bikes empower communities in Uganda
26 min Uganda’s e-cargo bikes are revolutionizing healthcare and small businesses while cutting emissions. Plus: bird protection in Burundi and zero-waste innovation in Mauritania.
Play
12. Focus on Europe
26 min US President Trump wants Greenland – but do Greenlanders want to join the US?
Poland is offering discounted rent to people willing to renovate apartments in need of repairs.
Play
13. Building bridges for all
26 min Conservationists get creative to save colobus monkeys in Kenya, bright Bazin fabric made ecofriendly in Mali, unpaid community work in Burundi pays off.
Play
DW's Eco Africa Season 2
Tired of news that leaves you anxious and powerless? That's why we make Eco Africa — a weekly show built on one idea: the people fixing this planet deserve to be seen. We meet innovators across Africa rewriting the rules of energy, food, fashion and mobility: the entrepreneur giving waste new life, the singer teaching kids to protect nature, the community taking on polluters, the Lagos creators making sustainability go viral
1. When environmental action is a question of faith
26 min In Burundi, the church joins the fight against plastic waste, and in Zambia, nature lovers are fighting to protect a vital forest reserve.
Play
2. The fight to save Libya's endangered sea turtles
26 min For 3,000 years, sea turtles have come to Libya's coast to nest. Now locals are fighting to save them. Plus: sunbaked bread and beating Mali’s fuel crisis.
Play
3. Somaliland village turns invasive tree to its advantage
26 min Creative ways of dealing with a non-native tree in East Africa. Plus: a once homeless Kenyan man sheltering sick birds and an avian solution to air strikes.
Play
4. Clean energy brings hope to Ghana's drought-plagued north
26 min Decreased rainfall once meant crop failure, but solar irrigation is reshaping farming in northern Ghana. Plus: Thermal cooking bags help women in Cameroon.
Play
5. Community-led conservation How small steps bring big change
26 min Online influencers inspire real change. Plus: Former pangolin poachers in Uganda help save an endangered species, and women in the DRC upcycle textile waste and create jobs.
Play
6. Sanctuary in Ghana under pressure: Too many sacred monkeys?
26 min Centuries‑old beliefs protect Ghana’s monkeys, but rising tensions and habitat loss now put that bond to the test. Plus: a literal lifeline for South Africa's seabirds and a hand-built amateur EV truck.
Play
7. Rethinking urban water: A Ugandan fix for a growing crisis
26 min The man finding solutions for purifying groundwater and recycling wastewater in Uganda. Plus the urban Nigerians beating food insecurity and rising prices.
Play
8. Ethiopia's electric vehicle revolution
26 min Electric buses and taxis are reshaping transport in Addis Ababa. Plus: In South Africa, how invasive biomass is transformed into low‑carbon bricks and new jobs.
Play
9. How community efforts can lead to transformation
26 min A video podcast from Kenya about community climate initiatives. Uganda's Bee Run; how citizen science improves air quality; and a resilient cotton returns to Senegal.
Play
10. Novel ways to power environmental change in Africa
26 min Youth humor to fight fossil fuels, solar grandmas in Ghana; bamboo to save homes from landslides and sacred sites protecting biotopes in Uganda.
Play
11. Making big cities more livable – Green ideas for urban life
26 min Tackling plastic pollution in urban Nigeria, staying cool in Cairo, making city tourism more sustainable and using dance to inspire climate action.
Play
12. The fight against food waste in Uganda
26 min How nanotechnology helps to preserve fruit and reduce methane emissions while protecting livelihoods. And a look at glaciers disappearing from Kenya to Austria.
Play
13. Afrobeats inspire Ugandans to dance to a different tune
26 min In a flood-prone Kampala suburb, artist Green Daddy is teaching the next generation to fight climate change. Plus: The cyclist with a vision for Africa's cities.
Play
DW's Eco Africa Season 3
Tired of news that leaves you anxious and powerless? That's why we make Eco Africa — a weekly show built on one idea: the people fixing this planet deserve to be seen. We meet innovators across Africa rewriting the rules of energy, food, fashion and mobility: the entrepreneur giving waste new life, the singer teaching kids to protect nature, the community taking on polluters, the Lagos creators making sustainability go viral
1. Hidden battles beneath the waves
26 min Below the surface, some of the ocean’s most overlooked creatures are fighting for survival: seahorses in Mozambique, sea cucumbers caught in a black market, and turtle eggs under threat in Libya.
Play
2. Growing food in the sand with algae
26 min From sandy islands to polluted cities, one scientist is giving land a second chance, proving degraded soil can recover. Plus: How recycled coal can purify rivers and revolutionize wastewater treatment.
Play
3. Ghanaian popstar becomes a sanitation advocate
26 min Ghanaian singer Wiyaala returns to her village Funsi, using her fame to improve sanitation and community health. In Mali, an artist paints public buses to raise awareness about the dangers of climate change.
Play
4. Dirty gold: Nigeria's toxic water threat
26 min Millions depend on the Osun River—but its color reveals a dark secret. Plus: West Africa's water sachets—how waste can work for you. And save money on period products!
Play
5. Tourists saving sea turtles in Egypt
26 min A role for tourists to protect turtles in the Red Sea; saving young trees in Niger; Indian mothers fight forever chemicals and aquaponics boosts yields in Libya.
Play
6. Plant-based traditional food in Zimbabwe
26 min Could indigenous African plant-based food traditions be revived? Can an AI-powered pangolin help save the species? Plus, hope from a chess game made of recycled plastic.
Play
7. The fight against food waste in Uganda
26 min How nanotechnology helps to preserve fruit and reduce methane emissions while protecting livelihoods. And a look at glaciers disappearing from Kenya to Austria.
Play
8. Young Zimbabweans reclaim their future through art
26 min Young activists use music, art and games to raise awareness of climate change and deforestation. Plus: Improving city life — from e-mobility in Lagos to "talking trees" in Berlin.
Play
9. Electric fruit: The Nigerian market running on rotten food
26 min In a Lagos market, spoiled pineapples and watermelons are turned into biogas. Plus: E-cargo bikes drive health and sustainability in Uganda.
Play
10. Groundwater gold: Nairobi’s race to find more drinking water
26 min From high-tech scans to citizen science, Kenya is scrambling to plug a shortfall in the capital's water supplies. Plus: The African city that has beaten drought for decades with trailblazing solutions.
Play
11. From blackouts to breakthroughs: Africa goes solar
26 min From Nigeria to Kenya and Ethiopia, solar promises a brighter future. But the boom also poses surprising challenges. Plus: The case of Burundi's vanishing lakes.
Play
12. Signs of Change - Sustainable future for Africa's students
26 min Students turning waste into food and fuel, growing vegetables in harsh conditions and learning climate warnings in sign language. Plus: we meet the architect rethinking African building design.
Play
13. Old wisdoms, bold ideas in Africa
26 min Ugandan schools are showing pupils that conservation is personal by teaching them about clan totems - plants or animals that are taboo to kill or eat. Plus: Upcycled art that rewires thinking about e-waste.
Play
DW's Eco Africa Season 4
Tired of news that leaves you anxious and powerless? That's why we make Eco Africa — a weekly show built on one idea: the people fixing this planet deserve to be seen. We meet innovators across Africa rewriting the rules of energy, food, fashion and mobility: the entrepreneur giving waste new life, the singer teaching kids to protect nature, the community taking on polluters, the Lagos creators making sustainability go viral
1. Kenya villagers seek justice in oil pollution case
26 min From a Kenyan community's lawsuit against an oil giant to Uganda's anti-pipeline protests, East Africans are challenging the human and environmental costs of oil.
Play
2. Ghana's guitarfish are disappearing
26 min Conservationists hope to save the guitarfish in Ghana — with snails. Plus: an underwater kelp farm in Namibia.
Play
3. Harare gets its teeth into Berlin's bread waste problem
26 min German bread may be recognized by UNESCO, but a lot gets tossed. A Zimbabwean reporter takes a look at how Berlin is trying to stop that. And cleaning up water in Ghana and plastic waste in Nigeria and Burundi.
Play
4. Coral reefs: A lifeline beneath the waves
26 min In Tanzania, women divers and local fishers are working to restore damaged coral reefs. Plus: The challenges facing Burkina Faso's water museum, greener streets in Lagos and illegal wells in Spain.
Play
5. Climate extremes are the new health threats — here is why
26 min Climate change is not only reshaping our weather - it may also be changing the way diseases like malaria spread. And: Prepping for El Niño across Africa.
Play
6. The environmental photographer whose images can't be ignored
26 min A Malian photographer is capturing environmental problems on camera, sparking debate – and change. Plus: The giant battery that could end power cuts in Malawi and elsewhere.
Play
