The Noefefan Bridge (Portuguese: Ponte Noefefan, Tetum: Ponte Noefefan) is a two-lane road bridge over the Tono River in the suco of Lifau, a village in Oecusse, the East Timorese exclave on the north western coast of Timor. As of 2017^[update], when the bridge was inaugurated, it was the largest bridge ever built in Timor-Leste. It connects several isolated communities west of the river with Pante Macassar to its east.

A World Bank report published in 2016, the year before the bridge was completed, observed that 95% of Oecusse households participating in a survey had expressed dissatisfaction with the state of roads and bridges in that region. However, the East Timorese government development program of which the bridge is a part has not been universally praised, and as of 2018, the paved road over the bridge ended abruptly at the latter's western extremity.

The bridge spans the estuary of the Tono River within 0.5 km (0.31 mi) of the Savu Sea. Its deck carries part of the coastal road linking Pante Macassar, Oecusse's capital city, with Citrana at the exclave's far western end, and also with the road to Passabe near its southernmost point.

Lifau was the first place on the island of Timor to be settled by Europeans. Between 1512 and 1515, Portuguese traders were the first of the Europeans to arrive in the area; they landed near modern Pante Macassar, about 5 km (3.1 mi) to the east of Lifau. Only much later was a permanent Portuguese settlement established at Lifau.

By the seventeenth century, Lifau had become the centre of Portuguese activities on Timor, which had extended into the interior of the island. In 1702, Lifau and its environs officially became a Portuguese colony, known as Portuguese Timor. However, Portuguese control over the territory was tenuous, particularly in the mountainous interior. In 1769, the capital of Portuguese Timor was transferred from Lifau eastwards to Dili, due to frequent attacks from the local Eurasian Topass group. Most of West Timor was left to Dutch forces, who were conquering what is today Indonesia. In the 1780s, a reconciliation took place between the governor in Dili and the Topasses, who henceforth usually supported the Portuguese government.

In 1859, under the Treaty of Lisbon, Portugal and the Netherlands divided the island between them. For the most part, West Timor became Dutch, with its colonial seat at Kupang. East Timor became Portuguese, with its seat in Dili. Lifau and its environs, known as Oecusse, was confirmed as a Portuguese exclave, with the Savu Sea to its north west, but otherwise surrounded by Dutch territory.

In 1975, Indonesia, which had since become independent, began an invasion of Portuguese Timor. After conquering that territory, including Oecusse, the Indonesians proceeded to occupy it until 1999, when the East Timorese voted for independence. Before leaving, the Indonesian military and its allies inflicted a scorched earth policy on the territory, especially in Oecusse. When Timor-Leste became independent in 2002, the new Constitution of Timor-Leste expressly provided, in recognition of Oecusse's very longstanding particular disadvantages, that the exclave would "... enjoy special administrative and economic treatment ..." and "... be governed by a special administrative policy and economic regime".

In 2013, the government of Timor-Leste appointed former prime minister Mari Alkatiri to oversee the development of a special economic zone in Oecusse. The following year, the National Parliament of Timor-Leste took a further step towards complying with the government's constitutional obligations towards Oecusse, by enacting a law for the creation of an Authority of the Oecusse Special Administrative Region (Portuguese: Autoridade da Região Administrativa Especial Oé-Cusse – ARAEO), and for the designation of Oecusse as a Special Zone of Social Market Economy (Portuguese: Zona Especial de Economia Social de Mercado – ZEESM). On 23 and 24 January 2015, the central government formally handed over some of its powers to the ARAEO and the ZEESM.