Considered by many as the outstanding representative of the post-independence African scholars, he was also a pan-Africanist, political strategist, and international civil servant.
Rweyemamu was born on 28 September 1942 in Katoma, a small village in the outskirts of Bukoba town located in Kagera Region, Tanzania.
In the government he was appointed (1975) Permanent Secretary of the Planning Ministry and subsequently Personal Assistant (Economic affairs) to the then President of the Republic Julius Nyerere.
Rweyemamu is remembered as the father of Tanzanian economics and made his greatest impact through the remarkable concentration of his students in top echelons of government and academia.
It was established by four of the institutions with which Justinian Rweyemamu was affiliated: CODESRIA, the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, IFDS, and the Third World Forum.