Samura Kamara

Kamara was chosen on October 15 as the Flag Bearer for the ruling All Peoples Congress for Sierra Leone's 2018 Presidential Elections. He received 42.7% in the first round election.

As Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, he prepared and launched a comprehensive strategic document known as the Sierra Leone Foreign Service Transformation Strategy, 2014 – 2018. As in the Ministry of Finance, he enhanced increased staff capacity of the Ministry and Missions, ensured salary increases in the Ministry, created new directorates, and facilitated training of staff within and outside the country. He upgraded the ICT Infrastructure of the Ministry, ensured the production of Sierra Leone's first diplomatic magazine and Official Directory of Sierra Leone's Overseas Missions and Consulates, which were launched by the President in July 2017.

He subsequently served as Financial Secretary, and as Bank Governor, Minister of Finance and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in the APC Administration of Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma. Kamara crafted and implemented the Agenda for Change (2008–12). His stewardship of the economy as Finance Minister saw real average GDP growth of 5.2% per annum (excluding iron ore). Before moving to the Foreign Ministry in 2012, Dr. Samura Kamara, with leadership provided by the President, designed the Agenda for Prosperity.

He was the lead technocrat in the negotiation team that won Sierra Leone debt cancellation in 2007. As Chair of African Caucus constituency he guided negotiations resulting in Africa getting a 3rd chair on the World Bank Executive Board.

As Finance Minister, his concern for the poor ensured his design and implementation of programmes that resulted in poverty incidence falling from 66% in 2004 to 53% in 2011.

In a bid to enhance protection of its funds in the military ruled war-time Sierra Leone, and enhance effective use of international resources for the average Sierra Leonean, Dr. Samura Kamara was in 1994 appointed Programme Manager by the World Bank for its Structural Support Programme to the country. He also served as Financial Secretary during this time as part of efforts to build trust in the management of the mainly international donor flows which constituted over three quarters of the government's non- military financial receipts. He stayed on as Secretary of State, Finance in early 1996 to ensure that such vital services to the people of the country were not cut off during the transition to civilian rule.

He proceeded to Fourah Bay College where he earned a bachelor's degree in Economics in 1972. He holds a PhD in Development Economics (1986) from Bangor University in Wales, United Kingdom.

Kamara strengthened Sierra Leone's multilateral relations by facilitating the ratification and/or domestication of The 1954 Convention on the status of Stateless Persons; The 1961 Convention on the reduction of Statelessness; The 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations; and The Constitutive Act of the Pan African Parliament; and the world's premier multilateral environmental protection agreements such as, the Minamata convention on Mercury; the Nagoya Protocol; the Basel Convention on the control of trans- boundary movement of hazardous wastes and their disposal; the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara (born April 30, 1951) is a Sierra Leonean politician and economist. He was the All Peoples Congress (APC) Party's nominee for President of Sierra Leone in the 2018 election. He was the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Sierra Leone from 2012 to 2017, Minister of Finance and Economic Development from 2009 to 2012, Governor of the Bank of Sierra Leone from 2007 to 2009, Financial Secretary in the Ministry of Finance during President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah's administration.

Dr. Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara was born in 1951 in Kamalo, Karene District, North-Western Province of Sierra Leone, then a colony of United Kingdom. His father Pa Gibril Kamara was an ethnic Temne from Maworrko village near Rothuk and Magbanktha villages, Gberray Junction, Maforki chiefdom, Port Loko District. Dr. Samura Kamara's mother, Ya Bomporro Kamara (née Kanu) is an indigene of Kamalo, Sanda Loko Chiefdom, Karene District, North-Western Region.