Arabs are losing faith in democracy as a tool for economic stability, says BBC's Arab Barometer survey of 23,000 people in nine Arab countries.

Ten years after the start of the Arab Spring, which aimed to overthrow autocracy and introduce democratic change, most Arabs concluded that the economy is weak in a democracy..

“There is a growing awareness that democracy is not an ideal form of government and cannot fix everything.. Across the region, people are starving and frustrated with existing systems,” says Michael Robbins, director of Arab Barometer.

Most respondents agree that they are more concerned with the effectiveness of their government's policies than with the type of government.

According to the EIU Democracy Index, the Middle East and North Africa ranks lowest of all the regions covered by the index: Israel is classified as a "

Tunisia was the only country that managed to form a stable democratic government after the 2011 Arab Spring uprising.. However, Tunisia appears to be returning to the authoritarian rule of President Said. According to the EIU Democracy Index 2021, the country dropped 21 places in the rankings and was reclassified as a "

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One in three people in every country surveyed agreed with the statement that over the past year they ran out of food before they could buy new ones..

The struggle to keep food on the table was felt most acutely in Egypt and Mauritania, where about two in three people said it happens sometimes or often..

The survey was largely conducted prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February, further exacerbating food security in the region, especially in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, which are heavily dependent on Russian and Ukrainian wheat exports..

According to Arab Barometer's Robbins, Arab citizens may be looking to alternative political systems, such as China's model, an authoritarian one-party system that "