British aid worth £3m, from the UK's Department for International Development (DfID), boosts Nigerian government funds in paying for the injections and other contraceptives.
It is a subtle relationship, in which the Africans are expected to do the running, by starting services and generating projects.
The donor then steps in to support schemes - giving advice on training midwives, for example - and carefully scrutinise progress. Even talking about "family planning" is sensitive in Nigeria though.
Jigawa's health commissioner, Hassana Adamu, said: "There's a widely believed notion that God provides for whomever he creates, so this means some people think there's no reason to limit the size of your family.
"So we call the programmes 'child spacing' - and explain it's about women spacing out their births, so their bodies have ample time to recover and prepare for the next pregnancy."
While I was in Nigeria, remarks from President Goodluck Jonathan that alluded to the prospect of introducing a law on birth control caused a storm.
The government insisted he had been misquoted. But ministers do acknowledge the population cannot keep growing at 3% a year without economic growth that reaches everyone.
Mike Egboh runs a programme called Paths 2, which is trying to improve how health systems in Nigeria function using schemes such as repairing hospitals.
Mr Egboh's motivation is highly personal - his own mother died in labour during her 11th pregnancy.
He told me: "Many of us here in Africa were not planned children.
"I've seen women being wheeled out of the labour room dead. I stayed at a hospital one day - and within three hours, there were five dead bodies. Five. I'm not kidding - I was there."
Paths 2's state team leader in Jigawa, Abubakar Kende, said: "Many of these women cannot afford to continue bearing children. They are looking for a way out.
