The 2001 Central Government Reform (中央省庁再編, Chūō Shōchō Saihen) by the Japanese government involved the establishment of a new ministry, the merging of existing ministries and the abolition of others. This resulted in little more than a change of ministry names (with the exception of the Environment Agency which gained ministry status — a longtime goal).

The objectives of the reform were:

The then-1 Office and 22 Ministries were reorganised into 1 Cabinet Office and 12 Ministries, including the Environment Agency into a ministry. The Cabinet Office would then be able manage policy co-ordination on issues that concerned two or more ministries more effectively.

The administrative reform reorganised the Ministries according to their main "purposes" in a way that they could perform as synthetic and coherent a function as possible. In order to prevent sectionalism, which has been pointed out for its detrimental effects and respond to issues flexibly and cohesively, systems of policy coordination have been constructed so that related administrative organs, in light of their purposes, hold deliberations on their inter-Ministerial measures. A system of policy evaluation has been introduced for the government itself to evaluate the effects of its policies before and after implementation, and to utilize the result of evaluation in the planning and drafting of policies.

Administrative reform included the introduction of Independent Administrative Institution (IAI), which are organisationally independent from the government. These reforms enabled these IAIs to operate national museums and research institutes.

The number of national civil servants were to be reduced by 25% over the decade as well as a general reduction of government organs.