to building and maintaining a common and inclusive civic identity. This is achieved by securing equal opportunities for all to contribute to and benefit from the polity. It requires that the State ensures that the rights of all are respected and creates the conditions for all members of society to take on their share of the responsibilities. Society as a whole benefits from such a policy. This process can lead to changes in majority and minority cultures. This is why the HCNM prefers to speak about the integration of multi-ethnic societies rather than integration of a minority group into a particular society. Given the increasing ethno-cultural diversity within all OSCE participating States and a concomitant heightened interest in models and approaches to integration, the HCNM has decided to synthesize the collective experience of the HCNMs and share this in the form of the present Guidelines. These endeavour to provide guidance on how States can work towards increasing integration and social cohesion while addressing the broad question of how to protect and promote human rights, including the rights of distinct communities to have their identities protected. No general advice applicable to all participating States could ever provide specific answers regarding the content of State policy, as each State has its own context. However, these Guidelines do recognize that the responsibility to support the integration process and implement integration policies always lies with the State. The Guidelines combine a normative and practical approach that is based on the HCNM’s experience accumulated when working especially on national minority issues in the context of post-Cold War transition, State-building and consolidation. Although they are based on specific HCNM working experience and do not include an exhaustive set of integration policies, they nevertheless contain insights and conclusions that may be relevant in many different contexts. The term “national minority”, as used in the Guidelines, refers to a wide range of minority groups, including ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural communities, regardless of whether these groups are recognized as such by the States where they reside and irrespective of the designation applied to or claimed by them. In addition, “minority” is often used as a shorthand term for “persons belonging to national minorities”. This does not imply that all principles, minority rights and policy options presented in the document apply to every situation in the same way. It is clear that, while basic human rights standards apply to all, good integration policies will need to be tailored to some extent to meet the challenges and needs of different minority groups and different circumstances. The content of integration policies may depend on such factors as the numbers involved, the length of settlement 4 Guidelines on Integration of Diverse Societies