President Hakainde Hichilema has been awarded the prestigious VIP Global Water ChangeMaker Award at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

The inaugural award was received by Zambia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Dr Chola Milambo, who accepted the award on behalf of President Hichilema, on the sidelines of the UN 2023 Water Conference that started today, March 22 to March 24, 2023.

This was during a flagship event on the Launch of the High-Level Panel report: Pathways for mobilizing USD$ 30 billion annually by 2030 for water investments in Africa.

President Hichilema was presented with the award alongside, His Excellency, Hussein Ali Mwinyi, President of Zanzibar, for being the first two African countries to develop and launch their country water investment programmes.

President Hichilema launched the Zambia Water Investment Programme (ZIP) 2020 – 2030 in July last year.

During the same event, co-chairs of the International High Level Panel on Water Investment for Africa, H.E, Macky Sall, President of the Republic of Senegal, H.E, Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Netherlands, H.E, Hage Geingob, President of the Republic of Namibia and H.E, Jakaya Kikwete, former president of the United Republic of Tanzania were also presented with awards for demonstrated high level commitment and leadership on water investments in Africa.

Water Changemakers is a global challenge with two categories – the VIP Global Changemaker Award for demonstrated high level political commitment and leadership for water investment.

The other category is the Global Innovation Challenge Award for the most promising climate resilient innovations with the greatest potential for scale, replication and further investment to support a water secure world.

Water Changemaker was convened by the Global Water Partnerships, K-water and the World Bank Group.