Non-governmental organisations as social entrepreneurship and their contributions to health service: The case of Islamic Republic of Pakistan

History reveals that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have been serving unprivileged population from thousands of years across the world. In densely populated country of Pakistan, NGOs are the third biggest sector of society. Non- governmental organisations working as Social Entrepreneurship have been serving the population of the country since the independence of Pakistan in almost all domains of social welfare. The aim of this thesis is to understand the role of NGOs as social entrepreneurship and their contribution in healthcare sector of Pakistan. Since Pakistan spends only 2.8% of its GDP on healthcare, NGOs have taken the responsibility to provide for the poor patients through social entrepreneurship. The study also aims to understand the role of social entrepreneur in sustaining the operations of NGOs. A qualitative method of research is implemented in this study. 3 major NGOs of Pakistan, namely: Edhi Foundation, The Indus Hospitals and Patients' Welfare Association took part in the research. 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted with the leaders and employees of the organisations by using 2 different list of questions respectively. Later, thematic analysis with both inductive and deductive approaches was used to categorize and analyse the data obtained from these interviews, direct observations and documents provided by the organisations. The results revealed that these NGOs share a huge burden of the Pakistani government by providing a range of health services to poor citizens. These NGOs provide healthcare facilities to the patients completely free of cost. The features of leaders' character also played a significant role to establish the NGOs and keep them sustainable for years regardless of hurdles and no support from government.