Coffee Bay (Afrikaans: Koffiebaai) is a town on the Wild Coast of the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa.

[6] The community is largely rural and Coffee Bay's infrastructure includes informal settlements, a trading store, a plain camping site and two resort hotels.

At the same time, the Eastern Cape Department of Social Development identified challenges that include high unemployment rates, malnutrition, housing shortages, infrastructure backlogs, low levels of health facilities, low levels of education, HIV and environmental degradation.

The communities’ lives are dominated by poverty and ill-health,[7] and most of the population do not comply with the environmental legislation regarding the use of natural resources.

A study has suggested that the high illiteracy and unemployment compels people to use coastal natural resources to satisfy their basic needs.