From the Ground Up argues that the international community’s efforts to improve public expenditure and budget execution decisions would be more effective if done in collaboration with local independent monitoring organizations. Stephen Kosack, Courtney Tolmie, and Charles Griffin track the work of sixteen independent monitoring organizations from across the developing world, demonstrating how these relatively small groups of local researchers produce both thoughtful analysis and workable solutions. They achieve these results because their vantage point allows them to more effectively discern problems with governance and to communicate with their fellow citizens about the ideals and methods of good governance.

The book highlights several examples of local groups making an impact, including a Guatemala organization that persuaded the government to change the school calendar so that students would not sit for months without books and supplies; a Ghana organization that identified reasons behind high teacher absenteeism on Fridays and then started work with the government to correct the problem; and a Paraguay group that documented a troubling lack of transparency among public school budgets and effectively made the case that parent organizations were the only independent group capable of being an outside monitor of the funds.

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