Although IMET funding has increased by more than 70 percent since fiscal year 2000, the number of students trained has decreased by nearly 14 percent. Over the last 10 years, countries in the Europe and Eurasia region have continued to receive the largest portion of IMET funding, receiving $30 million in 2010.However, all regions have received increased IMET funding since fiscal year 2000, with the levels of funding to the Near East and South and Central Asia regions more than doubling from fiscal year 2000 to fiscal year 2010.Professional military education represents the largest single use of IMET funds-nearly 50 percent in fiscal year 2010. Other major types of training funded by IMET include English language training and technical training, which represented13 and 11 percent, respectively, of fiscal year 2010 IMET program costs.Training to build respect for internationally recognized human rights standards is provided to IMET students through various in-class and field-based courses, but human rights training was generally not identified as a priority in the IMETcountry training plans GAO reviewed. IMET students primarily receive human rights training through human rights courses that focus on promoting democratic values, and through a voluntary program that sends them on visits todemocratically oriented institutions. However, human rights and related concepts were identified as key objectives in only 11 of the 29 country training plans GAO reviewed for IMET participant countries that received low rankings for politicaland civil freedoms by Freedom House, an independent nongovernmental organization.

Furthermore, 7 of the 12 training managers GAO interviewed from countries that received low to moderate rankings for political and civil freedomssaid that human rights was not a priority compared to other IMET objectives.