Communities need ongoing support for good water management, which is necessary to support safe, resilient and inclusive WASH outcomes. 2. Water (or WASH) Committees are central to the sustainability of community managed water systems and WASH outcomes, and support should focus on supporting Water Committees. • Water Committees do benefit from some technical support – more in relation to proactive management of risks, as well as some operational requirements of water systems (capacities to respond to minor technical problems is mostly sufficient). • Water Committees also need mentoring & motivating, through ongoing support to “backstop” governance & management, and through monitoring and reporting to encourage both accountability and recognition of progress. 3. More careful consideration needs to be given to the nature of support offered to communities, for sustainable water management outcomes. • Project-based support is appropriate for providing some place-based support, such as with the design and installation of infrastructure. However, the backstopping of Water Committees requires ongoing and regular support, beyond a project life cycle. • Support needs to be provided in ways that encourages the initiative and self efficacy of Water Committees, such as by mentoring and developing capacities to solve technical, management or governance problems. A reliance on external organisations to fix problems has created a culture of dependency and delimits a Water Committee’s self-belief and motivation to take action, and, reduces their authority and agency within their community. • Support for community water management needs to encompass more than educational objectives – whilst some capacity development of Water Committees is needed, there is also a need to influence behaviours (of Water Committees and community members). Complementing educational approaches with social marketing approaches offers a more holistic approach to influence action. 4. While many smaller villages and settlements have strong social cohesion across the whole community, many villages and settlements do not – the strongest levels of social cohesion often exist at smaller levels within villages/settlements. External organisations and Water Committees should seek to “work with the grain” by engaging with existing levels of social cohesion, including social structures and networks, such as tribe, zones or groups/clusters of households, and social groups). 5. The social networks of communities extend beyond the boundaries of the village or settlements, with most having community members residing in towns or cities elsewhere in Solomon Islands or overseas. External organisations could leverage existing informal social networks that connect rural villages with towns, as innovative ways to provide support to rural communities. Town-based community members and connections are potentially rich agents for knowledge transfer and acquiring resources for supporting improved WASH outcomes. 6. Although Water Committees are central to sustained community water management, all community members have important roles to play. Water is Everyone’s Business and collective action is required by everyone. The way that individuals and households use and impact water, affects the sustainability of the water supplies – Water Committees need to influence the actions and behaviours of community members. And, community members need to participate in collective action such as conducting minor maintenance activities, assisting with larger maintenance and repair activities, and by paying water fees. 7. Structural and contextual factors, such as physical and social factors, influence local water management and WASH situations. These can be specific to each community, and so the problems encountered by a Water Committee, the types of support they need, and the suitability of different ways to provide that support, are not the same for every community. An awareness of local factors and histories is important to enable supporting organisations to offer appropriate support to Water Committees.