A Class Conversation with Ambassador Kolker
By Jia Qin (SFS’23)
On February 7 we had the pleasure of welcoming Ambassador Jimmy Kolker to campus for a conversation. Our Conversations in Health: Global to Local class was eager to hear about Ambassador Kolker’s perspectives on embassy work and global health leadership and learn from his distinguished career as a diplomat for both the U.S. State Department and Department of Health and Human Services. Our discussion with Ambassador Kolker revolved around the central idea of diplomacy in global health, as well as the key role played by the ambassador in advancing U.S. foreign policy.
Ambassador Kolker began the discussion by describing how his liberal arts education at Carleton College uniquely prepared him for interdisciplinary work as a Foreign Service Officer. According to him, embassy work requires generalists who are able to juggle multiple fields of expertise and synthesize them to advance U.S. priorities in the region. Ambassador Kolker also shared his deep love for this field; overseeing a web of local contacts day in and day out to coordinate projects was work that did not feel like work. The ambassador also emphasized that the key to working as a diplomat was the ability to think on your feet and adapt to new contexts even if they are not in your field of expertise. I was actually surprised to learn this since I had always thought that foreign policy work required specialization in different fields of diplomacy. For example, I always thought you had to specialize in public health to become a health diplomat. However, this is not the case. As Ambassador Kolker’s career path illustrates, all of these different sectors of diplomacy are interconnected and complementary.
In our conversation, we also discussed the importance of ethics in foreign service work: how to balance national interest with local priorities. During his work leading the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in Uganda, Ambassador Kolker described the need to involve local health workers and indigenous medical leaders. I found the convergence of indigenous medicine with the PEPFAR program particularly interesting. Local healers were encouraged to learn the symptoms of HIV/AIDS and refer patients to PEPFAR programs in addition to providing their own services. This example perfectly showcases the need to adapt U.S. initiatives to be sensitive towards different cultural values.
Finally, our class discussion covered how diplomacy is essential for coordinating activities between multiple stakeholders, not all of whom see eye-to-eye. Uniting different aid groups behind PEPFAR was essential to maximize the effectiveness of the program and to reduce inefficiencies between competing agencies from different countries and donors. As a takeaway from the discussion, I was particularly inspired by Ambassador Kolker’s notion that strong diplomacy and leadership can unite both local and international efforts behind a common cause.
Jia Qin (SFS’23) is an undergraduate student at Georgetown University studying international affairs and global health in the Science, Technology and International Affairs (STIA) program. Jia is a student in the Conversations in Health: Global to Local course.