In this 2018 interview, Tatiana Andía, now a professor at the University of Los Andes in Bogota, discusses the challenges facing Colombia’s health sector, principles of bureaucratic reform, and her experience as part of the health ministry’s drug price regulation team, whose work triggered a high-stakes showdown with the global pharmaceutical industry that had dramatic, unintended implications for Colombia’s foreign policy.
Tatiana Andía was an expert on the political economy of access to medicines conducting PhD dissertation research at the Colombian health ministry when the minister asked her to join a small, upstart team focused on regulating out-of-control pharmaceutical prices. Lowering the cost of drugs was crucial for ensuring the health care system’s financial sustainability, the ministry’s top priority for the sector.
Maria Isabel Patiño recounts her experiences as director of the Urban Development Institute in Bogotá, Colombia. She recalls some of the technical, legal, and political issues surrounding the implementation of the Transmilenio system. She highlights problems the city had with the administration of public resources and strategies for overcoming them. She details the process for designing and completing major infrastructure projects with an emphasis on the system of contracting. There was also a clause that imposed stiff penalties if a contractor failed to fulfill its responsibilities. Patiño describes the loan structure and how road construction helped strengthen relations between the local and national governments. She discusses some of the difficulties in establishing a good working relationship with the City Council in order to put in place valorization contributions. She describes how the institute designed a methodology to allocate scarce resources for the repair of local roads. She also talks about the challenges of communicating distribution policies to the public and stresses the importance of involving people and explaining decisions in non-technical ways. She describes how the institute used universities as impartial arbiters for conflict resolution. According to Patiño, Bogotá was equipped to institute the reforms it did because of its independence from the national government.
At the time of this interview, Maria Isabel Patiño was the senior executive director for Corporación Visionarios por Colombia, a nonprofit public-policy organization, where she was engaged in civic advocacy, education projects, urban mobility, transportation and public services. Between 2001 and 2003, she served as the director of the Urban Development Institute, the public entity that builds and maintains the mobility infrastructure in Bogotá. Previously, she was executive president of the Colombian flower exporters' association and of the banana growers association. She was also the former executive committee coordinator for the United Nations' Alexander Humboldt Institute bio-trade project promoting sustainable agricultural production.
David Escobar describes his role as private secretary to Medellín Mayor Sergio Fajardo and his strategy for reducing violence and bringing about improvements to the city’s complicated problems. He relates how the mayor introduced a package of social interventions such as education, health, public works, and urban transformation. He also describes the process of tackling corruption and getting a development plan approved by the City Council. He specifically highlights the importance of City Hall’s public communication program. He recalls efforts to work with the teachers to implement education reform rather than making demands or ostracizing them. Escobar lists four qualities that he looked for in his staff: knowledge, honesty, social sensitivity, and passion. He describes a process of prioritization, whereby the mayor chose to focus on 13 large projects and develop a simple monitoring system to ensure their completion, instead of pursuing many smaller ones.
At the time of this interview, David Escobar was manager of Sergio Fajardo’s presidential campaign in Colombia. Previously, he served as private secretary during Fajardo’s mayoral administration in Medellín. During that time, he led the office that controlled and directed strategic projects. He also served as the de facto chief of staff.
Diego Molano discusses the creation and development of Colombia's Center for Coordination of Integrated Action (CCAI). The organization was based on three principles: inter-agency coordination, instilling of trust in the military, and keeping a low profile by ensuring that no institution became prominent. The CCAI targeted areas characterized by the presence of armed groups, internal population displacement and the growing of illicit crops. It worked with the military to use five tools that consisted of humanitarian assistance, social programs for education and health, social infrastructure, economic development projects, and finally, culture, sports, and leisure, which contributed to building trust and confidence in the government and other institutions. Molano also discusses the use of the Padrino Model that included a “Godfather” who was accountable for the results in one of the 14 institutions in the CCAI. The CCAI later adopted the La Macarena model that supplanted institutions instead of creating them. Initially, the CCAI operated on solely domestic resources, but it later received support from the United States Agency for International Development and the international community.
At the time of this interview, Diego Molano was the high commissioner for Acción Social, the Presidential Agency for Social Action and International Cooperation. He was previously the coordinator of MIDAS (Additional Investment for Sustainable Alternative Development), which is a USAID program. Molano was also one of the founders of the Center for Coordination of Integrated Action. He served as the director of the presidential programs of Acción Social. He also worked as the coordinator of the social component of Plan Colombia. He was a professor at the Faculty of Political Science and Government and International Relations at Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá. He earned a master’s degree in public administration from Columbia University in New York.
Ingrid Morales talks about her work as the coordinator of social development for Plan de Consolidación Integral de la Macarena (Plan for the Integrated Consolidation of the Macarena). She was mainly involved in the fields of health, education, and housing. She explains how PCIM ensured health centers had the required infrastructure and personnel. She discusses the significance of medical and surgical sessions in allowing the community to get specialized assistance for sicknesses or surgeries that were inaccessible from the rural areas. In education, she elaborates on the “New School” program that was established to train teachers. Also, she explains the working of the school system together with the Family Wellbeing Institute, which had a program for nutrition, food security, psychology, and intra-family violence help. In the housing sector, she talks about the partnership of the state, the municipality, and the community in providing housing. She identifies the role of cooperation in building trust in the state and in the development of the public sector. Morales also explains the SISBEN system (Sistema de Identificación de Potenciales Beneficiarios de Programas Sociales), which involved those who lacked the resources to sustain themselves. Once they were registered in the system, they could receive food aid, health services, education and housing subsidies.
At the time of this interview, Ingrid Morales was the coordinator of social development for Plan de Consolidación Integral de la Macarena (Plan for the Integrated Consolidation of the Macarena). She was in charge of health, education and housing. She had extensive experience as a public administrator.
A. Plata discusses Colombian measures to gradually improve the efficacy of the police force. He discusses efforts to increase the size of the force in terms of both personnel and the number of police stations, as well as moves to improve training, mobility and equipment. He explains Colombian efforts to increase cooperation across regions, as well as with its neighbors. Colombia also established rural community policing, and engaged in community outreach measures to educate the public about the role of the police and their rights under the constitution, and to regain their trust.
At the time of this interview, A. Plata was the coordinator at the Regional Coordination Center in Colombia. A colonel, he served more than two decades as a member of the Colombian National Police Force, both as an administrator and as a policeman. He was in charge of the Montes de Maria region of Colombia.
Henry Samacá Prieto, the coordinator for economic development for Plan de Consolidación Integral de la Macarena (Plan for the Integrated Consolidation of the Macarena), discusses Colombian efforts to spur economic growth in Colombia’s six municipalities in Macarena. He begins by discussing the problems related to the growth of coca crops in Colombia, and efforts to redirect agricultural economic activity in ways that are conducive to economic growth. The first project aimed to provide in kind nutritional aid to rural families, along with assisting them in providing food through the farm. The second program aimed to assist farmers by providing them with capital in the form of equipment and agricultural raw materials. The last project provided guidance, technical assistance, microcredit, and governmental support for rural communities to economically reintegrate with the rest of Colombia. he also discusses the role of capital accumulation, livestock, credit, and training in encouraging economic development. Lastly, he discusses the role, and the shortcomings, of the Banco Agrario de Colombia (Agricultural Bank of Colombia) in allowing rural communities to achieve economic prosperity.
At the time of the interview, Henry Samacá Prieto was employed as the coordinator for economic development for Plan de Consolidación Integral de la Macarena (Plan for the Integrated Consolidation of the Macarena), in Colombia.
Guillermo Guevara discusses Colombia’s development efforts in the Macarena region. The program aims to improve infrastructure by developing roads, power generation projects, sanitation services, and communications infrastructure for mobile phones, radio and television. The project depends on funding from the government, the military and international organizations. The program incorporates relevant input from local communities in developing its goals, and support from the private sector to ensure local job creation and local participation in development projects. Guevara also discusses obstacles to development, including a sometimes precarious security situation, budgetary constraints, and lack of cooperation from regional governments.
At the time of the interview, Guillermo Guevara was coordinator for infrastructure for the Plan de Consolidación Integral de la Macarena (Plan for the Integrated Consolidation of the Macarena), a position that he had held since May 2008. Prior to that, he spent about 10 years supervising construction and civil works, especially in remote areas of Colombia. He also worked at the American embassy in Colombia.
Alejandro Echeverri, former director of urban projects under Mayor Sergio Fajardo, talks about the strategic urban development projects that transformed the city of Medellín, Colombia. He discusses the urban development strategy he followed, which focused on putting the largest public investments in the poorest and most violent parts of the city. Echeverri explains the process through which the government worked with community leaders and created forums through which the community could weigh in on urban development projects, with the aim of giving them ownership of the process. He describes how public communication and a focus on local workers were key in building community support. He discusses some specific projects that were undertaken and explains how the needs for renewal were prioritized. Finally he touches on how the urban renewal programs helped bring tourism to Medellín and how working with private sector partners is important to ensure sustainability of those projects beyond individual political terms.
Alejandro Echeverri was the director general of the Urban Development Company from 2004-2005 and the director of urban projects for the mayor's office of Medellin, Colombia from 2005-2007 under Mayor Sergio Fajardo. He is an architect by training and was a professor of architecture at the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana. Among his many architecture awards, his work with Mayor Fajardo in urban renewal won them both the Curry Stone Prize for Transformative Public Works from Architecture for Humanity in 2009. Their urban renewal projects have been praised not just for revitalizing poor neighborhoods but also for the quality and innovation of the architecture itself.
Sergio Fajardo discusses the role of transparency and planning in the transformation of Medellín, Colombia. Elected as an independent, he began his tenure without previous negotiation with political elites, which allowed him to escape the tradition of patronage and clientelism. Fajardo’s approach was based on sequential planning and strategic implementation of a number of projects that focused on education, cultural reform and social inclusion. Although he increased land taxation and dedicated the first year of his tenure to planning rather than action, Fajardo credits effective communication strategies and transparent linkage of public finances with development work for the successful management of popular pressure. Under the motto “Let’s Work Together,” he established partnerships with the national government, Medellín city councilmen, relevant groups like the teachers’ union, and the affected neighborhoods, or comunas. Fajardo attributes another major achievement of his administration, the improvement of the security situation in Medellín, to working relationships at these different levels. He describes how he capitalized on national negotiations by providing for the reintegration of demobilized paramilitaries. At the local level, his long-term strategy to stave off violence focused on providing alternatives to illicit work by allocating resources to the most disadvantaged areas, reclaiming public spaces from the grip of insecurity, and fostering dialogue to create a sense of collective ownership.
Trained as a mathematician, Sergio Fajardo Valderrama worked in academia at the University of Los Andes in Bogotá. Campaigning as an independent, he won election as mayor of Medellín and served in that office from 2004 to 2007. His tenure was characterized by a number of ambitious public works projects that garnered international recognition. After this term ended, Fajardo worked as a political commentator for several Colombian news outlets and joined Antanas Mockus’ 2010 presidential campaign as the vice presidential candidate.
