Kandia Kamissoko Camara, born on June 17, 1959, in Abidjan, is an Ivorian teacher by training and a politician. She served as Minister of National Education in several governments under President Alassane Ouattara before becoming Minister of State and Minister of Foreign Affairs from April 2021 to October 2023. She was elected President of the Senate in October 2023.
Kandia Camara holds a degree in English from the University of Abidjan and an advanced certificate in education from Lancaster University in England. She taught English from 1983 to 1986 at the modern college of Cocody and Treich-la-Plène college. From 1986 to 2002, she was a specialized English teacher at the Abidjan Hotel Professional High School.
A former high-level handball player, she was twice champion of Côte d'Ivoire (in 1974 and 1980) and won the African Club Champions Cup in 1981 with ASC Bouaké. She was President of the Movement of Students and Pupils of Côte d'Ivoire (MEECI) at the Bouaké Girls' High School from 1978 to 1980. Between 1987 and 1991, she was a member of the national office of the National Union of Secondary School Teachers of Côte d'Ivoire (SYNESCI), and from 1989 to 1991, a member of the Association of Women Teachers of Francophone Africa.
Her husband, Inza Camara, holds both Ivorian and American nationalities. In 2021, he was the Consul General of Côte d'Ivoire in New York. They have four children together.
In 1990, she founded the Committee for the Gathering and Awareness of Women for the PDCI-RDA. From 1990 to 1994, she was the Secretary General of the National Office of the Union of PDCI Women (UFPDCI) and also a municipal councilor in the Cocody Town Hall. Between 1994 and 1998, she served as Secretary General of the Rally of Republican Women (RFR), the women's section of the Rally of Republicans, and she became the national president of the RFR from 1998 to May 2006.
In 2003, she was appointed Special Advisor to the Prime Minister of the National Reconciliation and Transition Government, a position she held until 2010. In 2006, she became Vice President of the International Network of Liberal Women.
She served as Deputy Mayor of the Abobo municipality from 2001 and as a Member of Parliament for the same municipality from 2011. Kandia Camara was appointed Minister of National Education in 2011, with her position's title changing in the new Amadou Gon Coulibaly government of the Third Republic formed on January 11, 2017.
On September 10, 2017, she was chosen by Alassane Ouattara as the new Secretary General of the Rally of Republicans (RDR) at the end of the party's 3rd Ordinary Congress. With the creation of the RHDP, which included mainly the RDR and former PDCI members, she lost her position as Secretary General in the new party.
In 2020, she implemented distance learning for children when schools were closed for several weeks due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On April 8, 2021, after serving as Minister of National Education for ten years, she succeeded Ally Coulibaly as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Côte d'Ivoire, becoming the second highest-ranking official in the government.
In July 2021, she was elected Mayor of the Abobo municipality by the municipal council, replacing Hamed Bakayoko, who had died a few months earlier. She was re-elected during the municipal election on September 2, 2023.
The Achi II government was dismissed in October 2023, and Kandia Camara was subsequently unanimously elected President of the Senate on October 12, 2023, with 91 votes in favor and 6 blank votes, a month after the senatorial elections.