The Building Institutional Capacity in Asia (BICA) research program, funded by the MInistry of Finance of the Government of Japan, and undertaken by the Research Institute for Asia and the Pacific (RIAP), completed its fourth annual research project in March 2001. The BICA 2001 project report is titled "Public Sector Challenges and Government Reforms in South East Asia". This one day international conference in Jakarta formed the capstone to the project. It served two related purposes : to present a summary of the major findings of the project report; and to reflect on the implications of these findings for institutional capacity building in the public sector in South East Asia.