On 10th April 2015, the annual ceremony for performance awards to representatives of the 11 water utilities in the country was held i Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. Organized by the National Water Supply & Sanitation Council (NWASCO), the regulatory agency of the water and sanitation sector in Zambia, the ceremony kept its promises through the actual participation of all the delegations invited.As expected, the best performing companies collected most awards that evening, and naturally among them featured the water company Nkana Water & Sewerage Company (NWSC), one of the beneficiaries of the WOP Africa Program.

Supported by the Water Operators’ Partnerships in Africa (WOP Africa) of the African Water Association (AfWA) since 2012, Nkana Water Company received six awards (i.e. the highest number of awards at the event) including:

1. The Most improved CU in Water Quality

2. The Best CU in Water service coverage

3. The Most improved CU in operation and maintenance

4. The Best CU in Sanitation coverage

5. The Best CU in quality of operational data

6. The 3rd best performing CEO in the water and sanitation sector in Zambia; the award beneficiary who is Nkana Water Managing Director is the only female Managing Director of a water utility in Zambia.

According to beneficiaries themselves: "... the awards in many ways can be attributed to the partnership in which WOP Africa supported us and the encouragements we have received as we strive to make Nkana Water a performing company in the provision of quality water and sanitation services to our clients.”

The partnership approach between water operators (WOP) has been approved in 2006 by the Advisory Committee of the United Nations Secretary General in the field of water and sanitation, which recommended to scale it up globally with the support of the Global Water Operators' Partnerships Alliance (GWOPA). With the support of GWOPA tutored by UN HABITAT, the African branch known as the Water Operators’ Partnerships Africa Program (WOP-Africa) was established in 2009 as a sub-program of the African Water Association (AfWA). These partnerships between water and sanitation operators are exchanges and mutual visits relationships between two or more operators whose principle is that a more efficient operator (mentor) builds the capacity of one or other operators (beneficiary) less efficient. The ultimate goal is to help beneficiaries to improve their performance in sustainable and equitable delivery of services to the population.

In Africa, the pilot phase (2009-2014) of the program has implemented 18 partnerships including 04 in sanitation, with joint funding from the AWF / ADB and USAID. Beyond improving service performance, partnerships are illustrated as a better approach to support water and sanitation companies less efficient, to prepare efficient investment plans for their development. In addition, some recipient firms have distinguished themselves on a scale of benchmarking from national, regional to continental level. This was the case of the company Nkana Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) which received the largest number of distinction among the 11 water companies in Zambia, at the annual ceremony Excellence Awards 2014.