As a consequence, many families saw a decline in their incomes necessitating recourse to a range of coping strategies. The reports of the World Bank’s High Frequency Phone Monitoring Surveys of Households conducted in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands during the year throws further light on this.
With less to spend, consumer demand weakened. More and more people turned to, for example, growing food for their own consumption, sewing/mending their own clothes and forgoing personal activities such as going to the hairdresser, eating out, etc.