Effective reform pathways for addressing women’s access to land and tenure security in Africa are yet to be found despite their role in feeding the population. With the adoption of the AU Declaration on Land Issues and Challenges in Africa (2009) and the launch of the African Land Policy Centre (2017), hopes were high that existing precarious women’s access to land, tenure and food security might be transformed to opportunities. Prevailing discourses, however, still advocate for land reforms attuned to gender equality with a neo-classical chord. Gender parity-oriented reforms are less rubost and prone to producing ambivalent outcomes vis-à-vis women’s tenure challenges and aggravate food importation. This study uses evidence from two communities in Cameroon, and Africa to show that gender-sensitive land tenure reforms are crucial in the strive to guaranteeing women’s access to, control and land transfer for appropriate use and for bringing the second High 5s to fruition