Jimmy J. Kolker is an American diplomat. He was the ambassador to Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso – also known by its short-form name Burkina – is a landlocked country in west Africa. It is surrounded by six countries: Mali to the north, Niger to the east, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Côte d'Ivoire to the southwest.Its size is with an estimated...

 from 2000 to 2002 and Uganda

Uganda

Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...

 from 2002 to 2005. He is currently the Chief of the HIV/AIDS Section at UNICEF’s New York headquarters.

Biography

Jimmy Kolker was born in 1948 in St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

. He graduated with a B.A. from Carleton College

Carleton College

Carleton College is an independent non-sectarian, coeducational, liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota, USA. The college enrolls 1,958 undergraduate students, and employs 198 full-time faculty members. In 2012 U.S...

 and received his Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

. He served for four years on the Senate staff of Senator James Abourezk

James Abourezk

James George Abourezk is a former Democratic United States Representative and United States Senator, and was the first Arab-American to serve in the United States Senate. He represented South Dakota in the U.S...

 (D-SD). Kolker joined the U.S. foreign service around 1977, where he saw various diplomatic posts in Botswana

Botswana

Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana , is a landlocked country located in Southern Africa. The citizens are referred to as "Batswana" . Formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966...

, England

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

, Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...

, and Mozambique

Mozambique

Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...

, as well as Deputy Chief of Mission at the American Embassy in Copenhagen, Denmark from 1996 to 2000. President Bill Clinton nominated Kolker as United States Ambassador to Burkina Faso

United States Ambassador to Burkina Faso

This is a list of Ambassadors of the United States to Burkina Faso .Until 1960 Upper Volta was a French possession as a part of French West Africa...

 on July 1, 1999 and was confirmed on January 11, 2000. He left the post on August 2, 2002. On October 3, 2002, President George W. Bush nominated Kolker as United States Ambassador to Uganda

United States Ambassador to Uganda

The United States Ambassador to Uganda is the official representative of the government of the United States to the government of Uganda.-Ambassadors:*Olcott Deming – Career FSO**Title: Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary**Appointed: January 7, 1963...

 and was confirmed by congress on November 17, 2002. He left this post on September 30, 2005. Since 2007, Kolker has been Chief of the HIV/AIDS Section at UNICEF’s New York headquarters. He administers leadership and coordination of UNICEF's work on HIV and AIDS at a global level.

Kolker speaks French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, Swedish

Swedish language

Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...

, Danish

Danish language

Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...

, and Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

as foreign languages. He is married to Britt-Marie Forslund. They have two daughters – Anne and Eva.