Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella delegated to his wife, Ana Lucía Pineda, the coordination of humanitarian aid after the 7.4 magnitude earthquake that shook the country on August 10 and left at least 289 dead, 143 missing, 3,937 injured, and 14,705 homes destroyed. Pineda leads the campaign “Colombia, one heart” and, according to Pulzo, the government is considering that she also oversee the reconstruction of the devastated areas.
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Pineda’s role as a leader of social assistance causes is not new. During the 2020 pandemic, she led “Cosecha Solidaria,” an initiative funded by her husband’s law firm, De La Espriella Lawyers, which bought products from Caribbean growers and distributed them among vulnerable families, according to Las2orillas. And, during the presidential campaign, she created and led “Tigresas de la Patria,” the women’s movement that supported her husband’s candidacy.
After the earthquake, the government launched a solidarity campaign to collect donations and supplies for those affected in the Coffee Axis and the Southwest, led by Pineda and the second lady, Tatiana Céspedes, wife of Vice President José Manuel Restrepo.
The latter, in turn, announced three official accounts to receive contributions and set up collection points in Bogotá, Quibdó, Sincelejo, Acacías, Florencia, Pasto, Ibagué, Cali, Yumbo, Chía, and Cáqueza. “Every contribution, no matter its size, can become food, water, shelter, and hope for those who need it most today,” said the vice president.
The Minister of Commerce, Mauricio Gómez Amín, was put in charge of coordinating with Pineda the aid from businesspeople. “We call on entrepreneurs, guilds, and private sector organizations to join this initiative,” the official said. Other ministers repeat the formula in their announcements. The head of Agriculture, Indalecio Dangond, said his department coordinates sector aid “through the First Lady of the Nation.”
The return of the First Lady to an assistance role in disasters generated criticism, according to specialists consulted by the newspaper El País.
Javier Pava, who led the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD) on Tuesday under Gustavo Petro’s government, called the decision “an outdated vision”.
“It’s something from 1979, when disasters were seen as divine punishment and charity was believed in for ‘the poor people’ who suffered them,” explained Pava, who maintains that aid is an enforceable right from the State.
Doctor in History from the University of the Andes and public policy consultant, Isabel Arroyo, considered that the measure “trivializes social policy” by treating it as a matter that does not require technical expertise.
“They never tell the Minister of Finance that he has to be helped by the president’s wife, even if she has experience in finance. But they do make welfare experts endure someone without experience,” Arroyo told El País, adding a gender reading. “This is part of the language of the vindication of patriarchal ideas: the valuation of the woman by the husband she gets, her access to power by being married,” the academic commented to the Spanish newspaper.
However, there are some limits to first ladies that were incorporated as technical expertise took control of social policy in the second half of the 20th century.
The Colombian Constitution does not assign functions to first ladies. A 1993 Constitutional Court ruling eliminated the rule that gave them the presidency of the board of directors of the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare, an entity created in 1968 by Cecilia de la Fuente de Lleras, wife of President Carlos Lleras. “Marital status says nothing about professional, occupational, or academic qualification,” the court held at the time.
A later ruling established that presidential wives are not public officials nor can they assume ministers’ competencies, although they retain the power to lead charitable activities.
As criticism grows over the role assumed by the First Lady, the Colombian government is exploring expanding Pineda’s functions. According to the portal Pulzo, and although there is no official confirmation, the Minister of the Interior, Rodrigo Lara Restrepo, indicated that the First Lady is already carrying out tasks such as transporting power plants to Pereira for the Santa Mónica hospital and supplying fuel to the private hospital network.
Previous experience indicates that the creation of specialized institutions to assist victims of the contingency could be effective. According to the same source, after the 1999 earthquake, the Fund for the Reconstruction of the Coffee Axis was created, and it became an international reference due to the effectiveness of the measure.
Pineda, 38, is a business administrator from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and specialized in quality management and compliance. She worked at her husband’s law firm before founding her own projects, including the ice cream shop Amore Gelatería, with operations in Colombia and the United States.
“I have a genuine desire to serve and, more than the title, I like the purpose, the opportunity presented to me as a Colombian woman,” the First Lady declared before assuming the role in an interview with Semana magazine.
Her Instagram account, @analu_pineda, has over 1.2 million followers and shares every donation delivery and every visit to the affected municipalities. That public profile operates outside the State’s technical competencies and without the legal backing that ministries in charge of social policy have.
